Namibia has narrowly missed out on breaking a world record after safety fears forced organisers to abandon what could have been the world's biggest ever barbecue. Thousands of people had gathered at a sports stadium in the Namibian capital Windhoek to feast on an eight-kilometre-long sausage in an effort to beat Australia's record, set 13 years ago.
But after the barbecue, organisers said the crowd began pushing at the gates, forcing them to stop the count "to avoid people getting trampled".
Namibia needed to feed 44,159 people to break the Guinness World Record and when organisers called off the counting they were just 152 short. Allen Brough said they had counted 44,007 people by sunset.
"We marked people's thumbs when leaving the sports ground at the exit gates to prevent double counting but as it was getting dark, crowds began to push, getting impatient as they were eager to get out," he said. "There were many children and we were afraid they might get squashed."
Around 30 volunteers began work early on Saturday in an attempt to grill an 8.3 kilometre (5.2 mile) sausage.
Individual 20-centimetre-long portions of "boerewors", a traditional, spicy sausage, were cooked on improvised grills made of barrel halves covered with mesh wire.
About 50,000 bread rolls had to be baked for the event.
The event took place in the black township of Katutura in the north-western outskirts of Windhoek.
Windhoek Mayor Mathew Shikongo says Namibia will try again at a later stage.
"We should not be discouraged, Namibia was the first African country to embark on this massive organisation to challenge the Australians and next time will succeed."
2 comments:
We have BBQs just like this in Lexington ALL of the time.. Whats the big deal?
Are there that many people in Lexington ?
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