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Phnom Penh:
A senior government spokesman said Tuesday that 347 people had
died and 410 were injured in a stampede on a crowded bridge late
Monday in Phnom Penh.
The tragedy happened when a crowd of thousands panicked while
crossing a 100-metre-long bridge connecting an entertainment area
on Diamond Island to the mainland of Phnom Penh.
Minister of Information Khieu Kanharith said that Thursday would
be a day of remembrance for the victims, whose bodies would be
transported to their homes across the country.
"The government will organise the means of transport, because in
Cambodian tradition many car owners refuse to transport bodies. So
we will use military trucks instead," he said.
Khieu Kanharith stressed that, contrary to earlier media reports,
none of those who died had been electrocuted.
"The causes of death were firstly asphyxiation and, secondly,
internal bleeding," he said. "(As of Tuesday morning) one quarter
of the injured have left the hospitals."
Earlier Tuesday, Prime Minister Hun Sen said it was the worst
death toll in such a short period since the Khmer Rouge regime was
overthrown in 1979.
The stampede happened around 9:30 p.m. (1430 GMT) Monday, the
final day of the annual Water Festival, an event that authorities
last week predicted would attract up to 4 million people to the
capital.
Khieu Kanharith said the government had established three
committees to deal with the crisis: the first to investigate what
had happened; the second to determine the identities of the
victims; and the third to find out the cause of death of each
person.
He said the government would give $1,250 to the families of each
the deceased, and 250 dollars to those who were injured.
Emergency service crews battled into early Tuesday through thick
crowds taking the dead and injured to five hospitals around the
capital.
An unknown number of people jumped off the bridge to avoid the
crush, and rescue crews were still looking for them after
midnight.
Ly Vuthy, a vendor who witnessed the incident from her position on
the island, told DPA that well over 1,000 people were on the
bridge trying to leave Diamond Island when several of them
fainted.
The crowd then panicked, she said, and people were packed so
tightly on the bridge they were unable to move off.
"People were feeling trapped and claustrophobic, and many jumped
off the bridge," she said.
Her account was backed up by Sem Pagnaseth, a vendor on the
mainland side of the bridge, who said the bridge was "extremely
crowded - thousands of people were on it, standing side by side
like fingers pushed together."
He said barriers set up to prevent people exiting the bridge onto
a road on the mainland meant that those leaving the bridge were
unable to move away quickly, and the rest backed up behind them.
Sem Pagnaseth said there were few police doing crowd control
before the incident, but added that quick action by the police
prevented an even worse tragedy.
The dead and injured were ferried to hospitals in ambulances,
pickups and private cars.
The Water Festival is an annual celebration of the end of the
monsoon season. The three-day event is characterised by races
along Phnom Penh's Tonle Sap river in long canoes paddled by up to
70 people.
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