People reach for help as they struggle to escape a crush on a bridge in Phnom Penh on November 22. Frantic relatives were scouring makeshift morgues in the Cambodian capital after almost 380 revellers perished in the stampede.… (AFP/Tang Chhin Sothy)
BEN DOHERTY
Tenterfield Star
Tenterfield, NSW, Australia
24 Nov, 2010
PHNOM PENH: Most of those who died were from the country. They would not jump from the bridge because they could not swim. They did not know the water was only waist-deep.
Most were women and teenagers, unable to resist the crush of humanity pushing them to the ground.
Three hundred and ninety-five people died on Monday night when a crowd of people on the packed Rainbow Bridge in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, stampeded: panicked, it is thought, by fears the bridge would collapse or of being crushed by the throng.
They suffocated in the melee, or drowned having fallen unconscious into the water below. More than 500 were injured.
The Prime Minister, Hun Sen, described it as Cambodia's ''greatest tragedy in more than 31 years after the Pol Pot regime'', in reference to the Khmer Rouge, who killed an estimated 1.7 million people between 1975 and 1979.
The Prime Minister declared tomorrow a national day of mourning and promised compensation to those who lost family members or who were injured.
He said the government would pay the family of each person killed 5 million riel ($1250) for funeral expenses and each injured person would receive 1 million riel.
Bon Om Touk, Cambodia's water festival, is the biggest party of the year in Phnom Penh, when the normally sleepy city is swollen by more than 2 million visitors, including foreign tourists and people from the provinces.
The bridge spanning the narrow stretch of water - barely 40 metres between Phnom Penh city and Koh Pich island - was at the centre of the celebrations.
On the city side, a rock concert was under way. On the island side, Ferris wheels and dodgem cars were busy; fashion shops and bars were doing their best trade for the year.
The narrow footbridge, the Rainbow Bridge, was supposed to be one way only, from the island to the city. People trying to get to the island were supposed to take a second bridge. But the Rainbow Bridge was closer to the action.
As the night reached a peak, just before 10pm, something happened that sent the already packed crowd into a panic.
''It was packed. People were pushing each other and I fell,'' Khon Sros, 19, said from hospital. ''People were shouting 'go, go'.'' She was pinned in the crowd from her waist down and had to be pulled out by police.
''One man died near me. He was weak and didn't have enough air.''
A Melbourne firefighter, Paul Hurford, was one of the first on the scene. He has been in Cambodia half of this year with the Australian Firefighters International Relief and Education organisation, training local firefighters in emergency response.
Most of those killed were young, he said. ''The vast majority were 17-, 18-, 19-year-olds, and the majority of those were girls. It's always that much harder when you are dealing with youth.''
Mr Hurford said that hundreds of lives were saved by the quick action of local police, ambulance and fire authorities. He joined them, beginning to triage the injured and performing CPR on those who could be saved.
Yesterday, Rainbow Bridge was still littered with the evidence of the panic: thousands of shoes, shirts and hats, left behind amid the terror of the crush.
In the late afternoon, more than 100 monks held a Buddhist vigil at the bridge, burning incense and offering prayers for the souls of those who died.
At the nearby Calmette Hospital, the country's largest, bodies were laid out in lines on straw mats inside a large white tent. Boupha Lak sat at her daughter's feet, gentling stroking them.
''She went to the festival to see her friends, but she was alone on the bridge when it happened. Her friends I have seen today, they were on the other side. She was found on the bridge, crushed under all the other bodies. They told me she was on the bottom.''
By sunset all the bodies had gone from the open-air morgue. Army trucks bound for the provinces, piled with plain brown coffins and grieving relatives, rolled out of the city all evening.
24 Nov, 2010
PHNOM PENH: Most of those who died were from the country. They would not jump from the bridge because they could not swim. They did not know the water was only waist-deep.
Most were women and teenagers, unable to resist the crush of humanity pushing them to the ground.
Three hundred and ninety-five people died on Monday night when a crowd of people on the packed Rainbow Bridge in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, stampeded: panicked, it is thought, by fears the bridge would collapse or of being crushed by the throng.
They suffocated in the melee, or drowned having fallen unconscious into the water below. More than 500 were injured.
The Prime Minister, Hun Sen, described it as Cambodia's ''greatest tragedy in more than 31 years after the Pol Pot regime'', in reference to the Khmer Rouge, who killed an estimated 1.7 million people between 1975 and 1979.
The Prime Minister declared tomorrow a national day of mourning and promised compensation to those who lost family members or who were injured.
He said the government would pay the family of each person killed 5 million riel ($1250) for funeral expenses and each injured person would receive 1 million riel.
Bon Om Touk, Cambodia's water festival, is the biggest party of the year in Phnom Penh, when the normally sleepy city is swollen by more than 2 million visitors, including foreign tourists and people from the provinces.
The bridge spanning the narrow stretch of water - barely 40 metres between Phnom Penh city and Koh Pich island - was at the centre of the celebrations.
On the city side, a rock concert was under way. On the island side, Ferris wheels and dodgem cars were busy; fashion shops and bars were doing their best trade for the year.
The narrow footbridge, the Rainbow Bridge, was supposed to be one way only, from the island to the city. People trying to get to the island were supposed to take a second bridge. But the Rainbow Bridge was closer to the action.
As the night reached a peak, just before 10pm, something happened that sent the already packed crowd into a panic.
''It was packed. People were pushing each other and I fell,'' Khon Sros, 19, said from hospital. ''People were shouting 'go, go'.'' She was pinned in the crowd from her waist down and had to be pulled out by police.
''One man died near me. He was weak and didn't have enough air.''
A Melbourne firefighter, Paul Hurford, was one of the first on the scene. He has been in Cambodia half of this year with the Australian Firefighters International Relief and Education organisation, training local firefighters in emergency response.
Most of those killed were young, he said. ''The vast majority were 17-, 18-, 19-year-olds, and the majority of those were girls. It's always that much harder when you are dealing with youth.''
Mr Hurford said that hundreds of lives were saved by the quick action of local police, ambulance and fire authorities. He joined them, beginning to triage the injured and performing CPR on those who could be saved.
Yesterday, Rainbow Bridge was still littered with the evidence of the panic: thousands of shoes, shirts and hats, left behind amid the terror of the crush.
In the late afternoon, more than 100 monks held a Buddhist vigil at the bridge, burning incense and offering prayers for the souls of those who died.
At the nearby Calmette Hospital, the country's largest, bodies were laid out in lines on straw mats inside a large white tent. Boupha Lak sat at her daughter's feet, gentling stroking them.
''She went to the festival to see her friends, but she was alone on the bridge when it happened. Her friends I have seen today, they were on the other side. She was found on the bridge, crushed under all the other bodies. They told me she was on the bottom.''
By sunset all the bodies had gone from the open-air morgue. Army trucks bound for the provinces, piled with plain brown coffins and grieving relatives, rolled out of the city all evening.
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