Stories here and here, but BBC TV just said the death toll has passed 400 now. Looks like people may have been spooked when a big suspension bridge started swaying under everyone’s weight. It’s the largest peacetime death toll in Cambodia, and Thursday’s to be a national day of mourning.
Leonard Cohen was supposed to play Phnom Penh this weekend, I believe the only Asian stop on his present tour, but charging US$300 a ticket in one of the world’s poorest countries was apparently not all that great a move, and sales were so poor that the concert was canceled a couple of weeks ago. I have friends in Bangkok and Abu Dhabi who did buy tickets and were planning to attend, but they’re glad now that it’s been called off, as it won’t be a very festive atmosphere in the city at all.
Weirdly, I just finished Incendiary by Chris Cleave. There is almost the exact situation described on a bridge over the Thames.
Nowhere is immune. In my lifetime I recall Hillsborough, Lan Kwai Fong, the Kumba Mela, the Hajj disaster, Lan Kwai Fong, that German dance festival last year.
I’ve been in a few crushes myself, thankfully none of which got nasty: Glastonbury when the wall came down; Slane festival; Lan Kwai Fong the Hallowe’en before the disaster; and I was nearly in the Lan Kwai Fong disaster itself - missed it by about 1 minute.
This is only going to keep on happening as our population increases.
I get the chills and heebiejeebies just watching it. And that’s just the people who can see there’s space in just a few feet. Imagine being in the middle and oblivious except for the crush of humanity.
It’s amazing how thin our veneer of civilization is, isn’t it? I mean, who thinks it’s a good idea when you feel a bridge swaying to start everyone stomping on it all at once in panic? But then that flight instinct kicks in and we just bolt like scared cattle. And then the police spraying them down with water? Oh yea that helps calm people down.
I get, from reading survivor accounts, that those people had probably been in that position for a long time. One guy was trapped in the dogpile for five hours.
Sad and crazy thing. It’s hard to imagine how dangerous it can be to be in a large group of people. These things can start with a careless bump or word or someone tripping and it spreads into panic just like ripples in water. And there’s no where to go.
I muse upon this - of how people in faraway countries die. In Asia people die in a mass search for spiritual enlightenment.
In America people die in a mass search for Walmart deals.
Oh come on, don’t idealize the Asian cultures like that. You really think that all of them were after “spiritual enlightenment” as opposed to the fat stupid Americans who just care about their Wal-Mart deals? The article says the people in this disaster were gathering for a “water festival.” It didn’t elaborate too much on what they would be doing there but I assume probably a lot of drinking and eating and partying and probably shopping. Plenty of stampedes in “faraway countries” happen over soccer games and other events that have absolutely nothing to do with spiritual enlightenment. Sorry if this sounds harsh but…I just don’t get why people idealize other cultures while bashing America.
This was my first thought. My cousin and cousin’s former husband were at that concert. [Who concert in Cincinnati c. 1979*]For years I would look at them and think, “you could have been killed.” It was so unreal.
I watched the video jjimm linked. Somehow I didn’t envision such a tight wedge of people; I don’t know what I thought. Just slowly standing there being smooshed to death. Horrible.
ETA: Just checked Wiki; 11 died and it was in '79, my sophomore year of HS.
That’s pretty much my feeling, but some of my friends are hardcore Leonard Cohen fans. One guy who is a fan but wasn’t about to pay that much said he did a little research online and found that Cohen’s tickets were so high because he was apparently cheated out of a lot of money by a former manager at some point. Said it seems he really needs the cash and can’t even afford to retire now. Sad if that’s true.
BBC has dropped the death toll back to a little under 400, but it’s probably going to surpass it. More than 700 taken to hospital, and the health services there are overstretched as it is, to say the least. A small update here.
I know the Aussie managing editor of the Phnom Penh Post and asked him if he had any insight. He just sent me this:
"A number of things we heard. A panicked crowd as the suspension bridge moved and swayed, fire hoses on the crowd which shorted some electrics and simply too many people. The inquiry is continuing. Today all the flags are at half-mast, but otherwise the place looks normal."
As a claustrophobe who is never completely comfortable in crowds of people, I often think about what would happen if a mass of people panic like this. Claustrophobia can be an unrealistic fear, but it also has some survival traits - I tend to stick to the outside of crowds, and always know where the exits are.
What a terrible thing to happen, and a terrible way to die.
My husband and I returned from Cambodia about a month ago, and my heart sank when I heard - and saw - the news.
To think of the people dying such horrible deaths is just awful, and it adds to the tragedy when something like this happens to people who are already so deprived of everything.
It’s late Thursday morning over here, and a memorial service is under way now.
The electrocution deaths remind me of a mass killing of schoolchildren here in Bangkok in 1995. Early one morning on their way to school, they were waiting at a river-taxi stop, which is a metal platform floating on pontoons. The river taxi, which is usually a very efficient and even fun way to travel, accidentally rammed the platform, sinking it. All of the electrical wires attached to it went down, too. Electrocuted many. The ones who were not electrocuted drowned from being pulled under by the metal roof above as it went under. (All roofs were removed from all river-taxi stops immediately afterward.) Can’t remember how many died, along with some adults, but it was a fair number.
A small bit of good news. The official death toll had reached 456 but was then scaled back to “only” 347. That’s something, I guess. At Thursday’s memorial service, Prime Minister Hun Sen, who always strives to act the tough man, seemed genuinely emotional. Story here.
My friend at the newspaper there said the newsroom was hopping until 3am the night of the incident.
Wow, that video made me surprisingly uncomfortable. Just imagining being in the crowd… ugh.
But I’m having trouble imagining the entire crowd. I saw people being pulled out and carried away- why couldn’t all the people forming the outermost wall of one of the sides just move away? Maybe the problem is I’m having trouble imagining the numbers involved.
That’s what you were seeing - at one end of a long bridge absolutely full of squished people. But the pile of people has collapsed on itself - so the outermost people aren’t just laying up against the pile, they’re also trapped in it.
