Cambodia in day of mourning

Nov 25, 2010
AFP

PHNOM PENH - CAMBODIANS hold a national day of mourning on Thursday after more than 450 people died in a festival stampede that officials believe was caused by rumours that an overcrowded bridge was collapsing.

Grieving relatives and government officials, including Prime Minister Hun Sen, were expected to attend an early morning religious ceremony at the scene of the tragedy on Monday, the final day of the Water Festival.

Authorities said the throngs of revellers crossing to an island in Phnom Penh that was one of the main festival sites panicked as rumours rippled through the packed crowd that the bridge was about to give way.

'The deaths happened because the bridge was overcrowded and there was panic that the bridge was collapsing because it is hung by cables and it was swaying,' said Prum Sokha, who is heading a panel investigating the tragedy.

'Some started screaming that the bridge was collapsing, that people were getting electric shocks and that the iron cables were snapping, so the people pushed each other and fell down and the stampede happened.

'The people had nowhere to run,' said Mr Sokha, secretary of state at the Ministry of Interior. The government admitted it had overlooked issues of crowd control, while the victims' families expressed growing anger about security at the event, which attracted some three million revellers from all over Cambodia.