TENS of thousands of revellers have been left stranded at Burning Man after torrential downpours turned the desert into a giant mudbath.
Festival-goers in Nevada's Black Rock desert have been told to hunker down and conserve their food and water as more heavy rainfall is to set to lash the site.
The festival site was smashed with some six inches of rain on Friday, with more heavy downpours adding to the chaos over the weekend, officials said.
Held in a usually dry desert, the massive rainstorm is thought to have been the longest, heaviest rainfall since the world-famous festival began more than 30 years ago.
Cops said one person died "during this rain event" - but didn't give any further information.
Tents have turned into mud pits and no toilets are currently working on the swamped playa as trucks can't get through the bog to empty them.
Revellers have been forced to use bin bags as makeshifts boots or go barefoot as they wade through the deep mud.
It's understood some people have been suffering from hypothermia as the temperatures drop and supplies dwindle in the treacherous conditions.
Organizers have currently banned the movement of cars and trucks in and out of the site while festival-goers wait for the desert to dry out.
And people trying to flee the muddy chaos in their vehicles have only made the quagmire worse.
Trevor Hughes, a USA Today reporter, told the BBC: "There was a person parked next to me who tried to leave and she got six inches before giving up digging her wheels into the mud.
"[The ground] is basically this alkali dust that when dry, is hard as concrete but you get a little rain and it turns into this slippery, muddy mess.
"The water has nowhere to go, it can't soak in and it can't run off. So it just sits there."
One video showed a jeep half-buried in the sinking mud - unable to move after being trapped in the sludge.
Christine Lee, who's at the festival with her pals, said their makeshift structures built on the desert plain had collapsed.
"We are not allowed out of the playa, the gates are locked," she said.
"We have enough tuna for a week, so we're okay. All of our structures have fallen down."
Paul Reder, who has been attending the festival for 22 years, said he expected it would take at least two days for the area to dry out.
Although he said he's prepared to stay put, some festival-goers are leaving on foot and trekking five miles to the nearest motorway to get home.
The US Bureau of Land Management, the agency that manages the land on which the event takes place, said: "Rain over the last 24 hours has created a situation that required a full stop of vehicle movement on the playa.
"More rain is expected over the next few days and conditions are not expected to improve enough to allow vehicles to enter the playa."
The White House said President Joe Biden had been briefed on the situation.
Anyone planning on travelling to the festival, scheduled to end on Monday, will be “turned around” as it is shutting down.
The miserable scenes at Burning Man have been compared to those at Fyre Fest - the 2017 festival that left attendees stranded in the Bahamas.
They were promised "deluxe housing" that actually turned out to be tents - and many of the musicians didn't turn up.
Despite over 73,000 attendees still being stuck in the Nevada desert, Chris Rock and DJ Diplo managed to leave.
In a uploaded to X, formally known as Twitter, Diplo shared a video of Chris Rock and himself in the back of a pickup truck.
He said: "Just walked 5 miles in the mud out of burning man with chris rock and a fan picked us up."
Burning Man attracts nearly 80,000 artists, musicians and activists every year.
The festival site is built and dismantled annually in the Black Rock desert just for the mammoth event.
The downpours came towards the end of the nine-day festival, when the biggest crowds arrive to watch the burning of the giant wooden effigy.
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