At least eight people have died and scores of people have been hurt after a crowd surge on the opening night of a music festival in Houston, Texas.

Panic broke out after the crowd began to press towards the front of the stage at Travis Scott's Astroworld Festival, emergency officials said.

Eleven people were taken to hospitals in cardiac arrest and eight died.

Some 300 people were treated for injuries such as cuts and bruises at the event, attended by 50,000 people.

Local politician Lina Hidalgo, county judge of Harris County, described what had happened as an “extremely tragic night”.

“Our hearts are broken,” she said. “People go to these events looking for a good time, a chance to unwind, to make memories – it’s not the kind of event you go to where you expect to find out about fatalities.”

The incident began around 21:15 on Friday (02:15 GMT Saturday), Houston Fire Chief Samuel Peña said.

“The crowd began to compress toward the front of the stage, and people began to panic,” he told reporters.

As the crush began causing injuries to people, the panic grew, Mr Peña said.

According to the Houston Chronicle, Travis Scott, who founded the festival, stopped multiple times during his 75-minute performance when he spotted fans in distress near the front of the stage.

The rapper asked security to make sure they were okay and help them out of the crowd. Emergency vehicles, lights and alarms flashing, cut through the crowds several times, the paper says.

Amateur video from the concert appears to show fans jumping on an emergency vehicle in the crowd as the performance continues on stage.

Organisers halted the event when it was apparent that many people had been hurt, but the sheer scale of the casualties quickly overwhelmed the existing medical facilities, the fire chief added.

Judge Hidalgo said "many" of those killed at the festival had been "tragically young".

A reunification centre has been set up at the Wyndham Houston Hotel for families who have not heard from loved ones at the festival.

Earlier on Friday, hundreds of people had rushed the event's perimeter, knocking down metal detectors and a security screening area to get into the concert, news outlet ABC13 reports.

The second and final day of the festival, on Saturday, has been cancelled.

"Nobody could dream of this," said Houston Police Department Chief Troy Finner. "But we're here, and I think it's very important that none of us speculate. Nobody has all the answers tonight."

Live Nation, the event organiser, did not immediately respond to a request for comment, Reuters news agency reports.

Astroworld is an annual event held at NRG Park since 2018, though it was put on pause last year because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Travis Scott, 29, made his big breakthrough in 2013 and has since had eight nominations for Grammy Awards. He has a child with celebrity socialite Kylie Jenner who posted a video clip of the concert in which the lights of an emergency vehicle can be seen flashing among the crowd.

Other acts scheduled at the festival over the weekend included rappers Chief Keef and 21 Savage, and Australian rock act Tame Impala. (BBC)