Ethnic Vietnamese relatives pray for victims near the site where hundreds of people stampeded during a water festival in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Sunday, Nov. 28, 2010.Heng Sinith / AP Photo
29th November, 2010
(RTTNews) - The probe into last week's major stampede on a suspension bridge near the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, has concluded that no one could be held responsible for the tragedy which claimed around 351 lives and injured several hundred people, reports said on Monday.
Information Minister Khieu Kanharith told reporters in Phnom Penh that the stampede was "an unexpected accident" which could possibly be blamed on inexperienced security officials who allowed revelers to proceed in both directions through the narrow footbridge.
The incident occurred as several thousand Cambodians converged on Diamond Island near Phnom Penh on the last day of the "Water Festival," a major event in the Southeast Asian nation's social calendar.
Panic set in after a music concert on the Island which was preceded by a boat race on Tonle Sap river.
Kanharith added that the construction firm, which built the suspension bridge over the Tonle Bassac River would be asked to build another bridge in time for next year's "Water Festival."
On whether the government intended to take action against any particular official for alleged negligence, the Minister replied in the negative.
"Because it's impossible. Usually you can control when a situation becomes hostile, but here [Prime Minister] Hun Sen made it clear, everybody wanted to enjoy [themselves]," Kanharith said.
Further buttressing the point, he said video footage clearly showed the crowd ignoring repeated pleas by security personnel not to cross the bridge.
Nonetheless Kanharith acknowledged that the stampede may have been due to authorities blocking a second entry point and their slack response.
It is said to be the biggest human tragedy witnessed in the South-East Asian nation since the cold-blooded mass killings carried out by the Pol Pot-led Khmer Rouge regime in the seventies.
Around two million people are said to have attended this year's festivities.
The "Phnom Penh incident" has been dwarfed only by the 2005 stampede in Iraqi capital, Baghdad, which claimed the lives of over 1000 Muslim Shias.
by RTT Staff Writer
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