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Cambodian minister: 339 dead in stampede
Military police examine the bridge where a stampede took place in Cambodia.
[Updated at 4:25 p.m.] Steve Finch, a Phnom Penh Post reporter, told CNN that the stampede at the water festival in Phnom Penh began around 10 p.m. Monday (10 a.m. ET), when police began firing a water cannon onto a bridge to an island in the center of a river.
The bridge was packed with people, and police fired the water cannon in an effort to get them to move, he said.
"That just caused complete and utter panic," he told CNN in a telephone interview. He said a number of people lost consciousness and fell into the water; some may have died by electric shock, he said.
Watch: "It was chaos," reporter says
Finch cited witnesses as saying that the bridge was festooned with electric lights, which may have played a role in the deaths.
The government denied anyone died by electric shock.
But a doctor who declined to be identified publicly said the main cause of death was suffocation and electric shock. Police were among the dead, he said.
While Finch said the incident apparently coincided with the firing of the water cannon, a witness, Ouk Sokhhoeun, 21, told the Phnom Penh Post that the stampede began first.
In addition to the 339 people who have been confirmed dead, 329 people were injured, Prime Minister Hun Sen said, according to The Phnom Penh Post.
The incident happened on the final day of the three-day festival, according to The Phnom Peng Post. The festival, which attracts people from all over Cambodia, is held annually to commemorate a victory by the Cambodian naval forces during the 12th century reign of King Jayavarman VII, according to the Tourism Cambodia website.
[Updated at 3:37Â p.m.] Steve Finch, a Phnom Penh Post reporter, told CNN there were reports from witnesses of people electrocuted as police fired water cannons at people on the bridge to hurry them along causing the stampede.
According to a Radio Australia report, a big crowd watching the annual water festival panicked when a number of people were apparently electrocuted on the bridge.
Cambodian authorities say hundreds of people were either crushed in the resulting stampede or drowned when they fell or jumped into the river.
Prime Minister Hun Sen has given several post-midnight live broadcasts to update the country. In one, according to the Associated Press, he called the stampede the "biggest tragedy" in Cambodia since the Khmer Rouge reign of terror in the 1970s.
He also ordered all government ministries to fly the flag at half-staff and said there would be a national day of morning.
[Updated at 3:05 p.m.] Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said on state-run TV he was unsure yet as to what caused the stampede.
"This needs to be investigated more," Hun Sen said, according to an AFP report.
Hun Sen said a committee would be set up to examine the incident.
The Associated Press, Reuters and AFP reported that witnesses said 10 people had either collapsed or become unconscious during the festival, triggering the panic.
That led, they reported, to people rushing towards a bridge headed toward Diamond Island. That's when things got worse, a witness told AFP.
"We were crossing the bridge to Diamond Island when people started pushing from the other side. There was lots of screaming and panic," 23-year-old Kruon Hay told AFP. "People started running and were falling over each other. I fell too. I only survived because other people pulled me up. Many people jumped in the water."
Sok Sambath, governor of the capital's Daun Penh district, told AFP "this is the biggest tragedy we have ever seen."
iReport: Are you there? Send photos, videos, descriptions
[Updated at 2:41 p.m.] Khieu Kanharith, the Cambodian Minister of Information, has said the death toll from the stampede has now reached 339.
The three-day festival attracts people from all over Cambodia - and around the world - to the Royal palace. The festival is held annually to commemorate a victory by the Cambodian naval forces during the 12th century reign of King Jayvarman VII, according to the Tourism Cambodia website.
The festival is also used to pray for a good rice harvest, sufficient rain and to celebrate the full moon, the site says. The festival dates back to before the 7th century.
At night, the boats on the river are illuminated with neon lights and there is a fireworks display.
A stampede occurred during a water festival in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
[Updated at 2:36 p.m.] Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Monday on state-run Bayon Television that more than 200 people have died in the water festival stampede.
Officers with the Prime Ministers Bodyguard Unit stood outside a local hospital trying to help those who brought injured and control the scene of chaos outside.
Hundreds of shoes, clothing and personal items still littered the streets, the bridge and the underlying water near where the festival took place. The road on the bridge was so covered you could barely see the surface.
[Updated at 2:26 p.m.] Ambulances appeared to be making runs back and forth between the scene of the stampede and the hospital - dropping off the injured and then speeding away again, video on state-run Bayon Television showed.
Doctors stood outside a hospital, trying to direct traffic, between ambulances and vehicles of regular citizens bringing in the injured.
Friends and family clutched some the injured already in the hospital while others raced from the streets clutching the injured in the arms.
[Updated at 2:23 p.m.] Video from state-run Bayon Television in Cambodia showed panic in the streets and outside local hospitals.
Dozens of injured people appeared to be laying on what appeared to be the waiting room floor of a hospital with IV lines hooked up to them that were strung across benches.
[Updated at 2:04 p.m.] Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Monday on state-run Bayon Television that 180 people have died in the water festival stampede.
"With this miserable event, I would like to share my condolences with my compatriots and the family members of the victims," he said, according to AFP.
More than 4 million people were attending the Water Festival when the stampede occurred, said Visalsok Nou, a Cambodian Embassy official in Washington.
[Posted at 1:55 p.m.] More than 100 people were killed Monday in a stampede that occurred during a festival near Cambodia's royal palace in Phnom Penh, a Cambodian Embassy official in Washington said.
This story is developing. We'll bring you the latest information as soon as we get it.
This is a fairly nasty stampede, as stampedes go. As it happened on a bridge, people were pushed over the sides, plunging to their death in the water below. It must have been a horrific sight.
Is this sh!t for real lol. How could this ever fukking happen. Sad day for mankind
A bunch of people packed onto a bridge, watching events on the river below. Someone yells that the bridge is breaking under the weight of all the people. There are only two directions to go, and panic is contagious. This is a failure of the government, who should have had people preventing the bridge from becoming that clogged with people.
This has happened many times before where there are a mass of people and an constrained exits.
And once more Charles Darwin's "Theory of Evolution" has been PROVEN to be CORRECT: "ONLY THE MOST ADAPTABLE AND THE SMARTEST OF ANY SPECIES GET TO PASS-ALONG THEIR GENES – OR LIVE LONG ENOUGH TO DO SO."
For all the closet racist and bigggots hiding behind a webpage, your day will come. Die slow, you and your family.
Stupid ignorant egocentric people who have placed some of these comments makes the world especially USA a rotten place without norms and values. Get a live or go join a stampede we don't want you here if you have no compassion for your own species.
I will be thinking about this as I eat a great big delicious dinner, have a couple of drinks, shag my hot girlfriend and sleep in my big comfortable bed. Oooops, forgot about it already....
Hot girlfriend? Doubtful. Ugly attracts ugly.
@Chase, rumour is your Hotchick girlfriend has herpes.
Now so do you, for life, enjoy it.
LOOKS LIKE THE HARRY POTTER PREMIERE !!!
less people to rake the traps at my country club, damn
This is horrible, I ve jsut come back from Cambodia and fell in love with the people and the land ittself. A very downtrodden majority over there trying to recover from a horrific past..
Not to take away from this story, and hopefully not to throw my ego out there too much BUT...
I am always find it confusing when someone states that others make you ashamed to be an American. This is a big country! Of course we have a very ignorant population that have been shaped by TV, old hatred, and birth-right given greed and privilege. There is also a great heart to the people of this country full of soul and good. I hate for people to lose this as they they face ignorance and hate. anywhere.
The true Ugly Americans just came out and so arrogant. What have all these people done to you all of you? They did not even ask you for anything at all. I feel such as ashame to be Cambodian-American. What happen to the land of justice, peace, liberty, and mercy? You people are NOT much better than Al-qeaida or Hamas. Look at your comments...There are ten of thousandths Cambodian in the USA, France, Canada, Australia, NZealand, Germany, and Belgium. We will help one another soon. I'm sure people of China will help them soom.
If you're ashamed of America you can go back to Cambodia anytime
Pileone, people like you make me ashamed to share the same genetic structure. You see something like this and all you can do is use it to vent your hatred and bile. Are you really so small and unimportant that the only way you can feel big is to rant on the internet? Are you really so filled with hate that all you can see is ugliness? Is your ego so small that tearing down other people is the only way to feel better about yourself? Really, I'm curious, which one is it?
Personally, I'm a proud American and thrilled to live in what I feel is the greatest country on Earth. When I see something like this is reminds me that it's good that we have (and are developing) regulations to prevent things like this happening here. I also feel compassion for those who don't share in the advantages that I have. It's a pity that all you can share is vitriol and bile.
Chris, I don't think its his EGO thats small.....
A sad and regrettable event. Human stampedes and resulting deaths happen far more often than you'd think. And yes, the reasons range from panic to religion to Black Friday discounts. Panic occurs in the animal kingdom, of course, but religion and super saver sales do not. Quit comparing humans to animals. It's trite, among many other things.
Humans are animals. This is why we are fallible and tragedies like this occur. My thoughts go out to the freinds and loved ones of the dead.
We absolutely are not animals. That excuse is lame and pathetic. We have many abilities that animals do not. Stop being a sheeple by blindly believing what some turd writes in a magazine under the guise of science. We have the ability to meditate on and rationalize our behavior as either having good or bad consequences. These IDIOTS knew full well that by stampeding, someone would get hurt. The point is that they did not care.
So sad, these young people, their friends and familes ... the American People send you our thoughts and prayers.
America does this every year. We call it Black Friday.
Never heard of more than 300 people dying at a store on 11/26
Very sad, it looks the Goverment didnt take enough security measures for the Festival. I've never been to Camboia, but like 4 million people is too much for one event?
IVE BEEN TO SOUTH ASIA LONG TIME 6 YEAR NOW THAILAND LAOS CAMBODIA BEEN TO MANY DIFFERENT FESTIVAL ,, LISTEN PEOPLE EVERYBODY IS DRUNK AT THOSE FESTIVAL NO SECURITY NO NOTHING... PEOPLE IS THE FAR WEST DOWN THERE ,,, WHY PEOPLE ARE SO SUPRISE WHEN THOSE THINGS HAPPEND ,, MYSELF WHEN I EVER GO TOO THOSE FESTIVAL IN SOUTH EAST ASIA I MAKE SURE I STAY AWAY FROM ALL THOSE GATHERING CROWN OF DRUNK PEOPLE