Burning Man: A look back at a muddy disaster!

Thousands of festival-goers finally left the site of the Burning Man Festival in the Nevada desert, after spending several days stuck in the mud left by the torrential rains that hit the region a few days earlier.

A Burning Man festival attendee recounts his experiences after heavy rains hit the grounds and authorities told attendees to conserve supplies https://t.co/XtwuXzHrH9 pic.twitter.com/KSqN95SD3k

— CNN (@CNN) September 4, 2023

Once a year, tens of thousands of people gather in Black Rock City, the temporary metropolis created for the festival, and the 2023 edition was no exception.

We just published a new webpage of information about the weather, Exodus, and what to expect over the next few days in Black Rock City. The full page of information can be found at: https://t.co/qgc0mcFd0r. Please read and share.

— Burning Man Project (@burningman) September 3, 2023

Over 73,000 people were present in the desert as the festival, scheduled to run from Sunday August 27 to Monday September 4, was abruptly halted midway through!

The situation quickly became complicated when torrential rains fell on Friday evening, leaving an impressive amount of mud on the entire festival site, making it impossible to evacuate thousands of recreational vehicles, which were stranded for several days.

just walked 5 miles in the mud out of burning man with chris rock and a fan picked us up pic.twitter.com/0uxSXLHgY6

— diplo (@diplo) September 2, 2023

Celebrities also found themselves stuck in the mud. Diplo and Chris Rock, in particular, were evacuated by fans after walking more than 8 km!

As more than 60,000 people rushed to the exit in their vehicles, when evacuations were finally authorized, the majority found themselves stuck again, this time in a line that lasted more than 7 hours, and kept getting longer, so much so that the organizers of the disastrous event begged them to stay an extra day to give everyone time to get out.

The wait time to exit BRC is 7 hours and climbing. If you are able to, wait to exit BRC until later tonight or tomorrow, and save yourself the long wait. The man burns in 2 hours! If you do exit, tune into GARS 95.1 for updated information on your way.

— Burning Man Traffic (@bmantraffic) September 5, 2023

A Burning Man edition that will certainly be hard to forget for many!