Illusionist Criss Angel has cancelled a second death-defying stunt in Las Vegas after police officers struggled to control thousands of fans who lined the streets to see his latest trick.

The magician was set to be buried alive in concrete as part of a public illusion outside Sin City's Mirage resort on Wednesday night (22May13), but organisers underestimated the number of people who turned out to watch.

Cops struggled to control the surging crowd and the event was called off over safety fears.

Angel has since apologised to fans and insisted the stunt will be rescheduled.

In a series of posts on Twitter.com, he writes, "I'm so honoured to have had such an enormous crowd turn out but am very disappointed that we got shut down - officials never expected (a big) size crowd... We'll reschedule Buried Alive with appropriate number of police. I'm sincerely sorry for any inconvenience this might have caused anyone."

The news comes just days after Angel was forced to cancel a similarly scary stunt in Las Vegas on Friday (17May13) due to bad weather. The star had planned to walk blindfolded across a steel beam suspended between two high-rise buildings, but cancelled his plans because of strong winds.