Stampede death toll rises

tuesday,23 november 2010.

Government-supplied caskets are set out at Calmette Hospital in Phnom Penh on Tuesday for bodies of the victims of Monday night's water festival stampede. The government have already begun carting the coffins out to the provinces for relatives of the dead on.

THE death toll from Monday night’s  stampede on Diamond Island’s north bridge continued to rise yesterday, with officials confirming more than 350 people were killed and a similar number injured in the tragedy.

Minister of Health Mam Bun Heng, a member of the commission coordinating the response to the stampede, said yesterday that 351 people died and 395 were injured. “That is the figure we have at this time,” he said.

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The mourning after

Tuesday, 23 November 2010

Questions have been raised about the government’s disaster preparedness in the wake of a stampede on Monday night that killed more than 350 people and injured as many as twice that number.

It remains unclear what triggered the disaster, but Information Minister Khieu Kanharith suggested that rumours that the bridge was unstable sent panicked revellers shoving their way through the crowd.

Monks line the bank of an arm of the Tonle Bassac river yesterday next to the northern Diamond Island bridge, where hundreds died in a stampede. About 400 monks led a blessing ceremony for the deceased

“So panic started. It was too crowded and they had nowhere to run,” Khieu Kanharith said.Many of the deaths were caused by suffocation and internal injuries, he said.Khieu Kanharith said yesterday that the government had established a special “investigation subcommittee” made up of police and officials from the Ministry of Justice to probe the causes of the tragedy. The authorities have also put out radio appeals to the public for assistance.

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