Bridge Stampede in Cambodia kills more than 340 at festival

PHNOM PENH : A Bridge stampede at a water festival in the Cambodian capital was killed at least 349 people on Monday even injured more than hundred peoples.

The disaster occurred when a crowd attending a concert on an artificial island to celebrate the end of the rainy season returned to the mainland across a bridge roughly 30 yards wide and 300 yards long.

The mass death happened late Monday on a narrow bridge to an island in Phnom Penh where festivities were being held to mark the end of the annual event.

Some people suffocated, As the human crush intensified, where they stood up, others tried to jump, But many people couldn’t swim and fell onto the below and were killed or injured.

Prime Minister Hun Sen called at Thursday morning for an investigation into the causes of the stampede and announced a national day, he also says an estimated 349 people died in the unprecedented mishap.

The prime minister Hun Sen said “This is the biggest tragedy we have experienced in the last 31 years.

There were at least more than 220 of the dead were women. “People were carrying bodies of relatives, including children and women, they all looking Scared.

A freelance journalist based in Cambodia, Aya Kimura, said the wail of sirens continued through Monday night. This was the first such large-scale disaster.

A man-made site, diamond Island, was recently in the middle of the Bassac River off Phnom Penh in part as a platform.