Houston rapper Travis Scott revealed he was reeling after eight people died amid a crowd surge at his multiday festival, Astroworld.

Travis Scott

Travis Scott Photo by Paul R. Giunta/Invision/AP

“I’m absolutely devastated by what took place last night,” he wrote in a statement on Saturday. “My prayers go out to the families and all those impacted by what happened at Astroworld Festival.”

Scott was nearly an hour into his performance Friday night when fans in the audience started to become increasingly unruly. Houston Fire Chief Sam Peña said they “began to compress toward the front of the stage” around 9:15 p.m., sending the crowd into a frenzied panic.

“People began to fall out and become unconscious and that created additional panic,” he told reporters during a late-night news conference.

An estimated 50,000 music-lovers were at the sold-out event at NRG Park; more than 300 of who were injured in the concert chaos. Peña said scores of people were treated at a nearby field hospital while 23 others were transported to a nearby medical center, where eight of them were pronounced dead.

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