Burning Man Nevada live: Organisers plan festival finale as one dead and thousands stranded at Nevada site

Anyone planning on travelling to the festival, scheduled to run 27 August to 4 September, will now be “turned around” as it is shutting down.

Despite the restrictions on driving away from the site, comedian Chris Rock, 58, and music producer Diplo, 44, managed to trudge their way out of the mud for five miles before a fan picked them up in a drier part of the desert, and gave them a ride in their truck.

The Independent’s Ellie Harrison reports:

The Burning Man festival has been shrouded in misinformation that the gathering is housing an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus, rather than dealing with flooding.

However, in a statement to indy100, the Bureau of Land Management’s (which oversees the Black Rock Desert site) public information officer for Burning Man said: “I can confirm the event entrance was closed for the year because unusual rainfall caused muddy conditions where there was a full stop on vehicles, and not for an Ebola outbreak.

“We have heard no information of any participants with Ebola.”

Video posted by attendees on TikTok showed people wearing trash bags up to their knees to walk in the mud.

“They shut the water down, I’m walking around helping pull power cables out of the ground so they don’t get stuck in the mud.

Other attendees fully embraced the mud and even covered their bodies with it.

“This is the ultimate filter of beauty,” Dub Kitty told The Reno Gazette-Journal. “We’re trying to find my camp and magic along the way.”

“It was an incredibly harrowing 6miles hike at midnight through heavy and slippery mud, but I got safely out of Burning Man,” Former US Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal tweeted on Sunday.

Authorities have advised people stranded at the festival not to leave the desert due to damage to the surface of the playa caused by vehicles.

The rain, the mud and the sea of dirt have failed to dampen the spirit of some of the revelers at the Burning Man festival, which was washed away due to weather conditions.

Videos posted to social media showed costumed revelers- including a few children – sliding through the sticky mess, most of them covered from head to toe in wet earth.

“When you get pushed to extremes, that’s when the most fun happens,” Brian Fraoli, a 45-year-old veteran “burner” told Reuters.

Mr Fraoli said he had tried to drag his luggage through the mud and escape, but gave up and decided to relax and enjoy the experience. “Overall it was an amazing week and next time we will be more prepared,” he said.

The event is remote on the best of days and emphasizes “radical self-reliance” — meaning most people bring in their own food, water and other supplies.

Those who remained Sunday described a resilient community making the most of the mucky conditions.

“Everyone here seems in really good spirits,” said Paul Reder, who has been going to the event for 22 years, adding that people were sharing food and water. “There’s a general sense that this is going to end soon, the gates will open and we’ll all be on our way home.”

“We have not witnessed any negativity, any rough times,” organiser Theresa Galeani told Associated Press.

“Some people were supposed to leave a few days ago, so they’re out of water or food. But I am an organiser, so I went around and found more water and food.

“There is more than enough here for people. We just have to get it to everyone.”

Thousands of revellers are having issues communicating with concerned family members on Sunday.

Cell service is limited and access to the area was restricted.

Organizers said on Sunday that mobile cell trailers and public Wi-Fi sites were being placed across the Black Rock desert, CNN reports.

In addition, buses were sent to nearby areas where desperate festivalgoers may have walked while trying to make it out of Burning Man.

The Pershing County sheriff’s office said they have opened an investigation into the death of a person at the Burning Man festival which “occurred during this rain event”.

At least one person has died at the festival amid rain and chaos that has left more than 70,000 people stranded in the Nevada desert.

Authorities said the person’s family has been notified without revealing further details.

“Burning Man is a community of people who are prepared to support one another,” a description of the page read. “We have come here knowing this is a place where we bring everything we need to survive. It is because of this that we are all well-prepared for a weather event like this.”

“We have confidence in Communal Effort and Civic Responsibility and this is a good moment to drop in with those principles in mind.”

Read the entire guide here.

Burning Man is already a test of “radical self-sufficiency” for festival goers but the 2023 event brought more hurdles than most would have imagined.

The start of the counter-culture festival was delayed by a rare hurricane on the west coast.

Then climate activists blocked the only road leading to the site in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert before being rammed by a tribal park ranger in his patrol truck.