Stampede Toll Increases in Cambodia

Questions Mount About Cause of the Deadly Accident, as Country Prepares for a Day of Mourning.

NOVEMBER 24, 2010

By PATRICK BARTA

The Wall Street Journal

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia—Questions about what caused a deadly bridge stampede in Cambodia's capital late Monday mounted as the country prepared for a day of mourning later in the week.

The death toll from the stampede, at the end of Cambodia's annual water festival, rose to 378 on Tuesday, with hundreds more injured. Many of the injured rested on mats in the hallways of Phnom Penh's main hospital, which didn't have enough rooms for the victims, while relatives identified bodies laid out at the back of property. Authorities trawled waters beneath the bridge where the disaster occurred for more bodies.

It wasn't clear what triggered the stampede. Some witnesses said it was set off when a handful of festival-goers crossing the crowded bridge, between downtown Phnom Penh and a nearby river island, fell unconscious, triggering a panic. Efforts to escape intensified the gridlock, as people pushed in both directions, immobilizing the crowd. Many people said they were unable to move anything but their heads for more than an hour, in some cases resting on top of dead bodies.

Survivors said they were convinced that some of the victims had been electrocuted after authorities allegedly sprayed water onto the bridge to help disperse the crowds. The bridge was illuminated with bright lights, but it was unclear whether water could have triggered any electrocutions.

Many victims were screaming for authorities to cut off the electricity, said Ly Chea Oun, a 17-year-old Phnom Penh student, who said several people were electrocuted as he lay stuck in the tangle of bodies. He had nearly made it across the bridge when leaving the island, but got stuck when a tide of people overwhelmed him. He was later rescued and taken to the hospital.

Government spokesmen denied that water cannons were used or that people were electrocuted, and said they were still trying to determine the full cause of the disaster. Prime Minister Hun Sen ordered an investigation and said Thursday would be a national day of mourning.

Other victims said the bridge simply was too narrow to handle the enormous crowds of people attending concerts on the island, which is part of a major new real-estate development called Diamond Island, or Koh Pich, directly across from Phnom Penh's central downtown area on the Tonle Bassac River.

The $300 million project, expected to cover 75 or more hectares of housing, convention and other facilities over the next several years, is being developed by local developers with financing from one of Cambodia's biggest financial institutions, Canadia Bank PLC, according to local media reports.

A Canadia Bank representative said Tuesday he believed the tragedy was caused because there were many people on the bridge, and someone was pushed over. He said he had heard no reliable reports concerning electrocutions.

"This can't be blamed on anybody," said the representative, Charles Vann, an executive vice president at Canadia Bank, as he toured Phnom Penh's main hospital with an entourage of staff handing out money to victims, including $1,000 to relatives of the deceased and $200 to the injured. "This is an incident nobody expected."

He said more bridges would be added in the future.

The disaster came at the end of Cambodia's annual three-day water festival, when an estimated two million or more people descend on Phnom Penh from other parts of Cambodia and from overseas. Many go to see boat races along the city's riverfront that mark the end of the rainy season, with teams of rowers in traditional boats.

Many expatriates view the festival as a time to get out of Phnom Penh, which they say doesn't have the infrastructure to handle such an influx of people. Many rural visitors sleep in crowded homes of relatives or in city parks.

"It's basically a gridlock of bodies," said Stephanie Zito, a spokesperson for international relief agency World Vision, who attended the event and said at one point she spent more than an hour trying to traverse eight city blocks jammed by throngs of people. Her group on Tuesday was helping source medical supplies and other necessities.

Local hospitals were beginning to catch up with the demand for services by late Tuesday, with many of the injured festival-goers heading back to their villages. But many of the more-seriously injured were being treated in hospital hallways, resting on straw mats with mobile intravenous drips. Most of the male patients were shirtless, many still dazed.

Chheum Chhean, a 25-year-old who paints Buddha images in pagodas outside of the capital, said he had made it about halfway across the bridge when he felt people pushing in both directions, and he started to get pinned in. Soon he was barely able to keep his head above the bodies.

"When I was in the middle, I heard nothing," he said as rested in the hallway at Calmette Hospital with a tin of sterilized milk and several small bags of cooked rice. "There was no air—it was difficult to breathe." Later, he was freed and walked two or three steps before collapsing unconscious, he said.

Outside, relatives of victims scanned poster boards covered with of images of the dead taken soon after their bodies were uncovered. Wooden boxes were stacked up waiting to be filled as relatives identified bodies lined up under white sheets in an open-air morgue.

One woman, 48-year-old Neing Kan, said she had come to Calmette Hospital from the countryside after she saw the news on television and was unable to reach her daughter, who attended the concerts with her son-in-law and eight-month-old grandson. She came carrying a photograph of her daughter, a young woman with black hair, standing next to a river in a white dress. She said she was afraid to view the bodies and she was asking passersby if they could help.

One man said he recognized the young woman and had seen her body in a morgue at another hospital. Ms. Neing Kan slumped over a parked Toyota Camry and wept, but later decided to spend the night with a relative before visiting the other hospital.

Another family entered the hospital's morgue to find a 14-year-old girl under a white sheet on the pavement. She had been attending the concert with her uncle, but he walked ahead of her and then lost her in the sea of people. The girl's aunt, Eng Sreymorn, identified the corpse. Afterward, two young men moved the body into an orange bag and zipped it up so it could be put in one of the coffins. That left three other bodies still to be identified.