Cambodian stampede had air of inevitability

AFTERMATH: People place offerings and incense sticks for the victims of the stampede near the Diamond Gate bridge.

The appalling human tragedy during the annual Bon Om Touk Festival in Phnom Penh was not only predictable but also preventable

28/11/2010
Luke Hunt
Bangkok Post

When the authorities investigating the tragedy ask themselves who could have seen this coming, the answer really should be everybody. When they try and figure out exactly why so many died last Monday, one also hopes they will look at themselves and the man who employs them.

Cambodia's Rainbow Bridge tragedy is the country's biggest peacetime disaster, and the world's second worst such calamity after a similar stampede across the Tigris River in Baghdad left about 1,000 dead in 2005.

Rumours, panic and flight dominated both catastrophes as the sheer weight of numbers at this year's Bon Om Touk, or Water Festival in Phnom Penh resulted in an extraordinary death toll.

At the last count 347 (seems to be the most recent figure) people, mostly women, had died and at least another 755 were injured on the suspension bridge that linked the recently developed Diamond Island with the Cambodian capital across the Bassac River.

The response - dominated by the blame game, the launch of special investigations, a day of mourning, pledges of financial support and condolences from across the globe - was sadly almost as predictable as the crush itself.

Government spokesman Khieu Kanharith perhaps encapsulated the perspective of authorities before Monday evening's tragedy when he told journalists that police had been more concerned with pickpockets and boats capsizing than ''this kind of incident''.

The facts speak for themselves.
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