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| People place offerings and incense sticks for the victims of the stampede near the Diamond Gate bridge, site of a stampede late on November 22 which left nearly 350 people dead, in Phnom Penh on November 25, 2010 as Cambodia holds a national day of mourning. (HOANG DINH NAM/AFP/GETTY IMAGES) |
By Lauren Crothers
Special to The Star
PHNOM PENH—The bodies lay on mats, some cocooned in clear plastic body bags. Others were shrouded with thin, white sheets, some blotted with specks of blood. The bodies seemed innumerable, filling the porch area of a makeshift morgue on a sandy plot in Khmer Soviet Hospital.
An anxious crowd overwhelmed hospital officials, sitting at a little table nearby laden with papers and photographs of corpses bearing ID numbers. Relatives wanted to know where their loved ones were.
This was an end no one saw coming when the annual water festival, which ushers in the end to the monsoon season and marks the reversal of the flow of the Tonle Sap river, on the banks of which this mostly sleepy Cambodian capital lies.
The festival, in many ways, is the event of the year, marked by boat races, concerts, fairground rides and an influx of up to 3 million people this year — mostly from the provinces — to the city.
Please click here to read more...
An anxious crowd overwhelmed hospital officials, sitting at a little table nearby laden with papers and photographs of corpses bearing ID numbers. Relatives wanted to know where their loved ones were.
This was an end no one saw coming when the annual water festival, which ushers in the end to the monsoon season and marks the reversal of the flow of the Tonle Sap river, on the banks of which this mostly sleepy Cambodian capital lies.
The festival, in many ways, is the event of the year, marked by boat races, concerts, fairground rides and an influx of up to 3 million people this year — mostly from the provinces — to the city.
Please click here to read more...
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