By Daniel Ten Kate
Nov. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Cambodia has set up an inquiry to determine the cause of a stampede on a bridge last night that killed at least 347 people during an annual water festival which draws more than a million rural residents to the capital.
“We never had this kind of tragedy before,” government spokesman Khieu Kanharith said by phone from Phnom Penh. “We call for all eyewitnesses and people who were wounded to testify about what happened.”
The government today worked to identify bodies at four main hospitals as the army prepared to transport victims, most of which were women, back to their villages, Khieu Kanharith said. Authorities hurried to prepare coffins because they had only 60 on hand in the capital, he said.
The victims were mostly young people from provincial areas who had crossed the bridge to see exhibitions and concerts on Koh Pich island, Khieu Kanharith said. One theory is that a young boy tried to scare some girls by telling them the bridge was collapsing, triggering the stampede, he said.
“Because it was a suspension bridge, many people from the provinces didn’t understand that everything was normal,” he said. The government wouldn’t jump to any conclusions, he added.
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