A woman next to the body of a stampede victim at a Phnom Penh hospital
Reuters/Chor SokuntheaBy RFI
More than 330 festival-goers were killed in a stampede Monday on a bridge in
Phnom Penh. The Prime Minister called it the country’s worst tragedy since
the Khmer Rouge.
"This is the biggest tragedy since the Pol Pot regime," said Prime Minister
Hun Sen in a live television broadcast early Tuesday morning.
Pol Pot was the leader of the Khmer Rouge regime that ruled Cambodia between
1975 and 1979, leaving up to a quarter of the population dead.
At least 339 people died in the stampede, and more than 300 were injured.
The circumstances that triggered the stampede remain unclear.
Millions of people were in the streets for the third, and final, day of the
Water Festival, which marks the reversal of the flow between the Tonle Sap
and Mekong rivers.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/international/over-300-dead-in-cambodia-festival-stampede-1.326165
22:34 22.11.10
Latest update 22:34 22.11.10
Over 300 dead in Cambodia festival stampede
Prime Minister describes chaos in Phnom Penh water festival as the biggest
tragedy to strike his country since the communist Khmer Rouge.
By The Associated Press
Tags: Israel news Cambodia
Thousands of Cambodians celebrating a water festival on an island in a river
in the capital stampeded Monday night, leaving more than 300 people dead and
hundreds injured. Some in the panicky crowd who tried to flee over a bridge
were crushed underfoot or fell over its sides into the water.
An injured visitor being carried by Cambodian police and another visitor
after a stampede onto a bridge at an accident site during the last day of
celebrations of the water festival in Phnom Penh, Cam
Ambulances raced back and forth between the river and the hospitals for
several hours after the stampede. Calmette Hospital, the capital's main
medical facility, was filled to capacity with bodies as well as patients,
some of whom had to be treated in hallways. Many of the injured appeared to
be badly hurt, raising the prospect that the death toll could rise as local
hospitals became overwhelmed.
Hours after the chaos, the dead and injured were still being taken away from
the scene, while searchers looked for bodies of anyone who might have
drowned.
An Associated Press reporter saw one body floating in the river, and
hundreds of shoes left behind on and around the bridge.
Prime Minister Hun Sen, in the third of three post-midnight live television
broadcasts, said that 339 people had been killed and 329 injured. He
described the chaos as the biggest tragedy to strike his country since the
communist Khmer Rouge ruled in a reign of terror in the 1970s, and ordered
an investigation.
Hun Sen declared Thursday would be a national day of mourning, and ordered
all government ministries to fly the flag at half-staff.
Authorities had estimated that upward of 2 million people would descend on
Phnom Penh for the three-day water festival, which marks the end of the
rainy season and whose main attraction is traditional boat races along the
river.
The last race ended early Monday evening, the last night of the holiday, and
the panic started later on Koh Pich - Diamond Island - a long spit of land
wedged in a fork in the river where a concert was being held. It was unclear
how many people were on the island to celebrate the holiday, though the area
appeared to be packed with people, as were the banks.
Soft drink vendor So Cheata said the trouble began when about 10 people fell
unconscious in the press of the crowd. She said that set off a panic, which
then turned into a stampede, with many people caught underfoot.
Information Minister Khieu Kanharith gave a similar account of the cause.
Seeking to escape the island, part of the crowd pushed onto a bridge, which
also jammed up, with people falling under others and into the water. So
Cheata said hundreds of hurt people lay on the ground afterward. Many
appeared to be unconscious.
Cambodia is one of the region's poorer countries, and has an underdeveloped
health system, with hospitals barely able to cope with daily medical
demands.
Koh Pich used to host a slum community, but in recent years the poor have
been evicted to make way for high-rise and commercial development, most yet
to be realized.
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
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About Me
- Duong Dara
- Dara Duong was born in 1971 in Battambang province, Cambodia. His life changed forever at age four, when the Khmer Rouge took over the country in 1975. During the regime that controlled Cambodia from 1975-1979, Dara’s father, grandparents, uncle and aunt were executed, along with almost 3 million other Cambodians. Dara’s mother managed to keep him and his brothers and sisters together and survive the years of the Khmer Rouge regime. However, when the Vietnamese liberated Cambodia, she did not want to live under Communist rule. She fled with her family to a refugee camp on the Cambodian-Thai border, where they lived for more than ten years. Since arriving in the United States, Dara’s goal has been to educate people about the rich Cambodian culture that the Khmer Rouge tried to destroy and about the genocide, so that the world will not stand by and allow such atrocities to occur again. Toward that end, he has created the Cambodian Cultural Museum and Killing Fields Memorial, which began in his garage and is now in White Center, Washington. Dara’s story is one of survival against enormous odds, one of perseverance, one of courage and hope.
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