Cambodia unsure of cause of stampede that killed 378

The bridge where hundreds were caught in Monday’s deadly stampede in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, draws a crowd Tuesday.
The bridge where hundreds were caught in Monday’s deadly stampede in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, draws a crowd Tuesday.

— At the bridge where investigators poked though the debris of a disaster - abandoned flip-flops and sneakers, water bottles, pieces of sugar cane - Chea Chan lit a Buddhist memorial offering of incense, coconut and lotus flowers, and wept.

The 28-year-old had tried to grab his younger brother during the riverside stampede that left at least 378 dead Monday night, but he was pushed against the support poles of the narrow suspension bridge. His little brother fell down and immediately was crushed under four or five other falling people.

He found his dead sibling at a local hospital, with a broken neck and crushed face. “I’m totally in shock,” he said.

The victims were trampled when a crowd celebrating a holiday panicked for reasons that remained unknown Tuesday. The prime minister’s special adviser, Om Yentieng, denied reports that it was sparked by a mass food poisoning or by people being electrocuted by lighting cables.

Don Saron, 26, said she was walking across the bridge when people began shouting that it was going to collapse. She tripped and felt the crowds trampling over her face and chest.

“People were just walking here and there, and all of sudden, people started to run,” she said as she awaited treatment Tuesday at Calmette Hospital. She grimaced in pain as she leaned against a gurney on which she had just woken up nearly 20 hours after being caught in the stampede.

“I shouldn’t have been there. Why did I come to this festival, this ceremony?” she said.

Prime Minister Hun Sen described the stampede on Koh Pich - Diamond Island - as the biggest tragedy since the communist Khmer Rouge’s reign of terror, which left an estimated 1.7 million people dead in the late 1970s.

He declared Thursday a day of national mourning.

City Police Chief Touch Naroth said investigators were still trying to determine the cause but suggested that the bridge’s small size may have contributed to the tragedy. “This is a lesson for us,” he said on state TV.

State television showed horrific footage of the stampede, with thousands of twisted bodies - both dead and alive - piled atop each other, some screaming for help and grasping for hands as rescuers struggled to pull limp bodies out of the pile. Other rescuers fanned them with cardboard boxes.

On Tuesday, crowds jammed the sidewalk outside Calmette Hospital, looking for familiar faces in posted photos of unidentified victims.

Survivors recounted desperate struggles on the bridge to the island in one of the rivers running past Phnom Penh, where a huge crowd had come to celebrate the last night of a three-day holiday marking the end of the rainy season. As many as 2 million people are believed to have come to the capital, and many sought to grab a final few hours of fun at a concert after the traditional boat races.

The crush of people was intense. A witness, soft drink vendor So Cheata, said about 10 people suddenly fell unconscious. Panic surged through the crowd, which pushed onto the gaily lit yellow-and-gray bridge, which was already packed with people.

Imran, an events planner from Sri Lanka who asked his last name not be used for fear of angering Cambodian clients, said he pulled at least 12 bodies from the crush. People began handing him limp children as young as 5 or 6, and bodies - dead or unconscious - covered so much of the ground in front of his stand that people had to walk over them.

Some victims complained of being electrocuted, Imran said, possibly from the wiring for the lights on the bridge, though it was unclear if the electricity had killed people or merely shocked them.

At least 755 people were injured, but government spokesman Phay Siphan said that number and the death toll could rise. Authorities said there were no foreigners among the dead or injured.

Front Section, Pages 2 on 11/24/2010

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