Travis Scott Astroworld Festival in Houston, have led to the death of at least eight people and several others injured in a crowd surge.

Houston Fire Chief; Samuel Pena told reporters the compression of the crowd towards the stage occurred while rapper Travis Scott was performing.

11 people were taken to hospital in cardiac arrest, while the Houston Chronicle reported that 300 were treated for injuries such as cuts and bruises.

“The crowd began to compress towards the front of the stage, and that caused some panic, and it started causing some injuries,” Pena said.

“People began to fall out, become unconscious, and it created additional panic.”

The surge happened at around 9pm local time on Friday night. The show was called off shortly after several people began suffering injuries. Officials transported 17 people to the hospital, including 11 who were in cardiac arrest, Peña said. Many people were also treated at the scene at NRG Park, where a field hospital had been set up.

It wasn’t clear whether all eight who died were among the 17 that had been transported to hospitals.

In a video posted to social media, Scott could be seen stopping the concert at one point and asking for aid for someone in the audience. He said: “Security, somebody help real quick.”

The annual festival is run by Scott, a chart-topping Houston native. This year’s line up also included prominent musicians such as SZA, Tame Impala, Roddy Rich and Earth, Wind and Fire.

A crowd of 50,000 showed up for the two-day event, although the second day has now been cancelled.

Promoters had arranged for medical units to be on scene at the festival, however once the crowd surge began, those units were “quickly overwhelmed,” Peña said.

Houston Police Chief Troy Finner called for calm and urged people not to jump to conclusions as to what caused the surge.

“I think it’s very important that none of us speculate. Nobody has all the answers tonight,” Finner said. He added that there have been several rumors surrounding the event that authorities would look into.

“We’re going to do an investigation and find out because it’s not fair to the producers, to anybody else involved, until we determine what happened, what caused the surge,” he said.

Finner told reporters that Scott and the event promoters cooperated with police. The deadly surge caused the most deaths at a US concert since the 2003 Station nightclub fire that killed 100 people in Rhode Island.
Eleven people died and about two dozen were injured in 1979 at a concert for The Who as thousands of fans tried to get into Cincinnati’s riverfront coliseum.

The third annual festival was scheduled to run from Friday through Saturday, according to the event’s website. But officials said the planned second night would be canceled.

As of early Saturday, the identity of the deceased victims have not been made public.

Organized by Scott, the third annual festival was scheduled to run from Friday through Saturday, according to the event’s website.

However, officials said the planned second night would be canceled.