November 22, 2010
By SETH MYDANS
The New York Times
BANGKOK — More than 300 people were killed and hundreds more were injured in a stampede at an annual water festival in Cambodia that the prime minister on Tuesday called the nation’s worst tragedy since the murderous Khmer Rouge regime more than three decades ago.
Witnesses in Phnom Penh, the capital, said the stampede began Monday night when people panicked in a dense crowd on a small island close to the shore of the Bassac River.
Hundreds of people tried to escape over a short suspension bridge. Many died of suffocation or were crushed underfoot or were electrocuted by loose wires. Many drowned when they leaped from the suspension bridge into the water.
The night was filled with the constant sound of sirens and, at the scene and in the hospital, with the wailing of people discovering dead friends or relatives.
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