[clock ticking]
[music playing]
CARL AZUZ: Welcome to the show.
My name is Carl Azuz.
It's great to see you on this Tuesday in November.
At the gates of an events venue in Houston,
Texas flowers and candles have been
placed as a memorial for several people
who died on Friday night.
They were among the 50,000 who attended the Astroworld
Festival, a music concert at NRG Park
that was organized and headlined by rapper, Travis Scott.
Numerous lawsuits have been filed against him,
the concert's promoter and entertainment company,
and rapper and singer Drake who was
also performing at Astroworld.
The Houston Police Department says its criminal investigation
will likely take weeks, if not longer,
to determine who's at fault. But here's what we know.
As Travis Scott was getting ready to go on
shortly after 9 o'clock thousands of people
rushed toward the stage.
Those who were already near the front
were trapped with nowhere to go, and
as Scott started his performance the situation got worse.
Some people were crushed against each other in the stage
or trampled by the crowd.
Despite a relatively large police presence,
people's calls for help couldn't be heard above the music.
An ambulance made its way into the crowd to help.
Two audience members told CNN that Scott stopped the concert
multiple times to point out that people were hurt
but by the time the show was finally called off hundreds
had been injured, more than a dozen were hospitalized,
and eight people ranging in age from 14 to 27 years old
had died.
As of Monday, there were at least five
others in critical condition.
Who knew what when and who's responsible
are questions authorities are trying to figure out.
In 2019, three people were trampled and hospitalized
at this same festival.
But an operations plan for Astroworld
didn't include a specific strategy for dealing
with a surge of concertgoers.
- It was so tragic.
Many of them describing that they were packed in there
like sardines, that it was very difficult to breathe,
and that now they're so traumatized by what happened
some of them saying they're never going to a Travis
Scott concert again.
Take a listen.
- I've never been in such chaos, so unorganized, and just so
many people slamming into me.
- And you could feel like everybody
pushing up behind you.
You couldn't move your arms.
You couldn't breathe.
You couldn't see anything.
It was like you were seeing the back
of really tall people's heads.
It's like when everybody was moving--
there was like 15, 20 minutes where we weren't
in control of our bodies.
- Now all this as new questions are surfacing
about Houston officials being concerned before this concert
turned deadly.
The New York Times reporting that the Houston Police chief
went to Travis Scott's trailer before he
performed because he was concerned
about the energy in the crowd.
Here's what we know about the timeline.
According to the Houston Police Department, at about 9:15
was when the crowd started compressing towards the stage.
By 9:38, that event had turned into a mass casualty event
according to HPD with one officer describing that there
were multiple people on the ground in cardiac arrest
needing medical attention.
At about 10:10 that concert was shut down.
And according to the fire chief, it took about an hour
for all of those 50,000 people to disperse.
Now Live Nation, Astroworld Festival, and Travis Scott
issuing statements all saying that they are heartbroken,
that they're devastated.
But that's not enough for some of the concert goers.
There has been multiple lawsuits already filed.
Some of them claiming gross negligence
saying that these concert promoters that the organizers
did not do a good job, that it was not a safe venue,
and that's why they are now filing a lawsuit.
We're, of course, expecting probably
more lawsuits to happen.
- 10-second trivia.
Which of these places is part of the Kingdom
of the Netherlands, Belgium, Faroe
Islands, Aruba, or Bermuda?
[music playing]
The island of Curacao, Saint Martin, and Aruba
are all part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
[music playing]
CARL AZUZ: Environmentalists estimate there are millions
of tons of plastic in the Earth's
oceans and millions more tons flowing out to sea each year.
As much as 80% of it is believed to come from coastlines
and rivers, and there are a number of efforts being made
around the world to clean it up or prevent it from getting
there in the first place.
One of them is a simple catchment system
powered by bubbles, as in--
Now, it can't catch everything, but its creators
say it has been effective and easy to install
in a canal in the Netherlands.
[music playing]
- I think, for me, the ocean of water
has always been fascinating.
To see plastic in our oceans and how
it's damaging our environment, that hurts, obviously.
So I was thinking about all sorts of mechanical ways of how
we can live more in tune with environment
rather than to exploit it.
- According to the World Economic Forum,
eight million tons of plastic waste
are being leaked into our oceans every year.
That's the equivalent of an entire garbage truck being
dumped every three minutes.
And the source of the problem, the world's cities.
FRANCIS ZOET: If you see some of the rivers in the Netherlands,
but also in Spain and Indonesia, you
can tell that this problem in the oceans,
it's being created by us.
And if we can stop it closer to home,
it also becomes more visible.
[music playing]
- Here in Amsterdam, a simple solution
has been found that could stop up
to 86% of plastic waste ever reaching the oceans,
a barrier made of bubbles.
- So the way the bubble barrier works
is basically just a tube that we place diagonally
on the bottom of the waterway.
The tube has a lot of tiny holes.
We pump air through it, and the air bubbles
will rise towards the surface.
And then so we bring plastic which is in suspension
toward the surface.
And then at the surface together with the natural flow
of the river, we also bring plastic that's already
at the surface towards one side of the river, which
is our second component of the bubble barrier system, which is
where we retain the waste until it's removed
and then taken for processing.
I think the simplicity of the system
is what is really appealing.
[music playing]
In theory, it's just a tube and a catchment system.
[music playing]
If you want to do anything in rivers,
ship traffic is going to be dominant.
That's an economic driver.
We won't be able to stop that.
So we would have to find a solution which would be not
hindering all the other existing activities and, of course,
also the ecosystem.
- The bubble barrier does exactly that.
While it provides no impediment to water traffic
and marine life can pass through freely,
it also catches plastic waste of all sizes.
Anything from 1 millimeter scraps
of microplastic to wind surfing boards and abandoned TVs.
- So with every bubble barrier system that we're implementing,
we're trying to work together with the city and local NGOs
to evaluate what the bubble barrier is catching
to implement new policies and additional measures on land
and upstream so that collectively in the future
we can work towards less plastic entering in the water
in the first place.
FRANCIS ZOET: Our next step is a bubble barrier within Europe--
or actually multiple within Europe.
And we, of course, want to move to Asia because we think we
can make a lot of impact there.
And that's what we're going for right now.
- Bubble barrier is one part of the approach.
It's not going to be our silver bullet to just solve
the whole plastic pollution problem,
but we think it's a significant and very important
tool to really have a pragmatic approach of saying,
we know we have plastic in our oceans.
We know rivers and canals are major pathways.
We can stop this today to tackle this problem in a more
integrated approach that we look at how
are things being produced.
How are things being collected?
How are they being processed and recycled?
CARL AZUZ: The first ever call to Earth day
is taking place this Wednesday.
It's part of a new partnership between CNN and Rolex,
and it highlights what the companies recognize
as a planet worth protecting.
If you, your class, or your school
would like to get involved, please
visit cnn.com/calltoearth.
[music playing]
South Dakota State University's mascot is the Jack Rabbits,
but never underestimate the swiftness of the moose.
This happened ahead of last weekend's
rivalry game between South Dakota
State and North Dakota State.
Police and stadium officials worked to shoo
the animal out of the venue.
We can't confirm that the moose had any impact on the game,
though he would have scored himself if he
hadn't stepped out of bounds.
But South Dakota State later won.
I think the team needs to recruit him.
I mean, he could run all day.
He's got plenty of "moosel".
Plus he could follow in the footsteps of Baker Moose-field,
E-moose Smith, Joe Moose-tana, Moose-ca
Fitzpatrick, Joe Na-moose, Moose-al Faulk,
and of course, Randy Moose.
That's "moose-tly" all for today.
But before we leave, we want to give a shout out to you,
the students of Garfield Senior High School watching
from Woodbridge, Virginia.
Thank you for your comments on our YouTube channel.
I'm Carl A-moose for CNN.