Six people, all but one of them minors, were killed and about 35 others injured in a stampede of panicked concertgoers at a disco in Italy.

The victims died after panic erupted on the dancefloor inside the Lanterna Azzurra (Blue Lantern) nightclub according to firefighters who were called to the scene in a small town on Italy’s central Adriatic coast.

The dead included three girls and two boys and an adult woman, a mother who had accompanied her daughter to the disco in Corinaldo, where an Italian rapper was entertaining the crowd, police chief Oreste Capocasa confirmed.

Twelve of the 35 injured were in serious condition, Capocasa said.

The ages of the victims weren’t immediately given.

Many of the injured suffered severe bruising while others had broken bones.

It wasn’t immediately clear how many people were inside when the stampede erupted or the club’s maximum capacity.

But local reports said around 1,000 people were in the Blue Lantern club in the town of Corinaldo on the Adriatic coast for a performance by the Italian rapper.

The accident happened around 1am local time.

Italian fire officials and ANSA news agency said fans inside the club panicked and ran for the exits after someone sprayed a substance similar to pepper spray.

A teenager told ANSA he discovered that at least one of the emergency exits was locked when he tried to flee.

The report said authorities were investigating if the emergency exits were working.

“We were dancing and waiting for the concert to start when we smelt this pungent odour,” a 16-year-old boy who was taken to hospital told the media.

“We ran to one of the emergency exits but we found it blocked, the bouncers told us to go back.”

“The cause may have been the dispersal of a stinging substance, the young people fled and trampled over each other,” firefighters said on Twitter.