USA TODAY
By KEVIN MCCOY ,  GABRIELA MIRANDA
Houston authorities are investigating what officials described as a crowd surge that killed at least eight people and injured scores of others, turning the Astroworld Festival into one of the worst musical concert tragedies in U.S. history.
Officials declared a “mass casualty incident” at 9:38 p.m. Friday local time during the festival at NRG Park, where an estimated 50,000 people were in attendance, Houston Fire Chief Samuel Peña told reporters during an overnight news briefing.
The surge began around the time that rapper Travis Scott, a festival headliner, took the stage.
