Expert: Accident in Koh Pich due to lack of professionalism by the festival organizers

27 Nov. 2010
By Voha Cheat
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Soch
Click here to read the article in Khmer

Regarding the tragic accident which led to hundreds of people dead and injured due to the stampede on Koh Pich bridge, experts in the organization of national and international festivals claimed that this accident was caused by the lack of professionalism by the event organizers, i.e. they could not help people in case of incident.

Cambodia organizes the Water Festival every year since the country returned back to democracy [really?] following the 1993 election. However, each of the past years, the event only brought happiness to the revelers, the number of which increased from 1 million to 3 millions, and no accident ever happened where several hundreds of people died as it does during this year’s Water Festival.

This tragic event shook everybody and forced them to reflect and analyze the event which, in the past, nobody ever thought something like this could happen.

While a number of Cambodians believe that this deadly accident was a hazard or a karmic event, experts in the organization of large public events scolded that the organization of the Water Festival, both this year and during years past, were done haphazardly, that is why so many people died like this.

Ouk Vanna, PhD in economy and tourism and member of the royal academy, said: “We did not prepare the infrastructure to work properly according to expertise, this is one problem. Maybe we just put our own people to work, or we only use the same people over and over to work, we did not include experts in our organization, be they foreign or international, to help evaluate how the risk is.”

He added that the master plan to prevent this risk should be a priority that must follow international standards, just like the study of the risk should be well done, we must organize force to protect and save that is proportional to the number of revelers or tourists, they should be well trained in each security technique in order to be prepared and to save when risks do occur, and there should be signs showing the traffic direction, they should check the traffic of people constantly, from the beginning to the end.

He said that the government should announce publicly beforehand all the locations where the events will take place, the names of the officials in charge of organizing the entire event, the names of the officials involved at each single event so that they are responsible in front of the law in case accident do take place just like it did this year. However, he said that in Cambodia, festival organizations do not follow international standards at all.

Ouk Vanna added: “The second lacking is that we can see the armed force and the security force lacks moral conduct, they lack conscience and technical skills and they lack discipline, this I am not even talking about their education yet, we are only talking about discipline only.”

Regarding the police officers stationed to protect the Water Festival, he also criticized their lack of proper discipline: “Sometimes, they do not maintain a proper guard, they look to obtain bribes to allow people in. I saw them with my own eyes, the cops took 10,000 to 20,000 riels ($2.50 to $5) in bribe. Now I ask you, if someone bad brings in a grenade or explosive, it would be very dangerous, even during upcoming forums as well.”

Chea Sokhom, the secretary of state for the national and international festival organizations committee in Cambodia, recognized one part of the criticisms and he recognized that the organization of the security forces was not proportional to the number of revelers, however, he said that in the past, such problem never takes place.

Chea Sokhom seems to be blaming the attitude and the moral conduct of the revelers instead who caused the accident in Koh Pich: “Just like on the street, they [revelers] came in drove and created the jam, and regarding this unusual event, there were people who shouted this and that and it created panic. Therefore, those who came from the east collided with those who came from the west, they came from opposite direction, they want to win over each others, they pushed and shoved each other, this created the problem.”

This view is supported by those who participated in past festivals, and they also criticized the general attitude of the Cambodian public in their current daily foot traffic, because the majority of them do not maintain a good moral conduct or conscience, they do not respect each other, they do not forgive each other that much, even when they walk they do not want to avoid each other, they rather bump into each other without apologizing, and they always fight each other. Good conscience is lacking, smile, gentleness and civility no longer exist as they used to be among Cambodians in the past.

25-year-old Srey Len, who works for a company in Phnom Penh, said: “They should change, but it depends on people also. Right now, people has developed a lot, some studied a lot, they are dignified, but others who have studied a lot also, they still behave this way. But for the majority of those who live in the countryside, when they dance Ramvong and they step on each other’s feet, they fight each other. However, in the city, there are some who do that also, but it’s only a minority.”

Chea Sokhom praised the government which organized the festival well this year, his praise is also directed to the cops, the security forces, and the medical care personnel as well: “5 to 6,000 (security force) against 3 million people, it is impossible, therefore some problems will create difficulties. Secondly, the entrance for the emergency vehicles, can they come in if there are millions or tens of thousands of people jamming the streets? Therefore, bringing in medical vehicles is a problem. If we force the medical vehicles to move fast to bring them in, then accidents would happen and this creates another set of problems, therefore, roads need to be cleared by using sirens, and there must be cops walking in front of these vehicles to clear the roads.”

However, Ouk Vanna disagreed with this opinion. He said that the majority of the fault in the stampede in Koh Pich lies on the government’s shoulder or the shoulder of the festival organization committee because in case of urgency or tragedy, the public cannot be expected to remain calm and collected. Therefore, he said that the blame lies on the government which was not highly prepared for such risk, nor was it prepared to provide emergency care on the spot.

Ouk Vanna also said: “There was no set up of multiple emergency stations on the spot. Why were we not prepared for this? For example, if there was a fire, how can the fire trucks be brought in? What is the contingency plan? There are many problems. This is only one accident on the bridge, what if there was a fire along the riverside? Normally, when there are many revelers, we must be prepared for fire as well.”

Nevertheless, Chea Sokhom indicated that this year’s Koh Pich accident is a bitter lesson for the government for the future, and the organization for future Water Festivals will be safer, but he did not elaborate on any details of his claim.

However, Ouk Vanna indicated that the government should study the venue locations and their capacity because locations along the riverside cannot accept million of revelers such as this year’s number. Therefore, the number of commercial and exposition kiosks should be reduced. As for the number of cops and security forces, they should receive expert training, both in terms of protection and providing care, and they should maintain moral conscience and discipline as well.