Cambodians across the country observed a day of mourning yesterday for the victims of Monday’s Diamond Island stampede, as questions remained about the ultimate cause of and responsibility for the disaster.

Government officials said on Wednesday that the death toll had reached 456, though that number was revised downward yesterday to 347.

Senior Minister Om Yentieng, the deputy chairman of the government commission investigating the incident, said yesterday that the toll provided a day earlier by the investigatory sub-commission had double-counted some victims who were brought to local hospitals before being returned to their home provinces.

Government officials gathered yesterday morning at the site of the tragedy, where Prime Minister Hun Sen shed tears as he knelt to pay respect to the souls of the deceased.

“The loss of such a huge number of lives in just a fraction of time and at a single location is unprecedented in years of history of our celebration of national and international festivities,” the government said in an official statement issued at the mourning ceremony. “This tragic, untimely and unexpected loss of many lives will remain a bitter and painful memory for Cambodia.”

Phnom Penh Governor Kep Chuktema, whose resignation opposition leaders have called for in the wake of Monday’s incident, told reporters at the mourning ceremony yesterday that the tragedy was “a huge lesson for me and other authorities in preparing for such large events in the future”.

“This is an incident that no one wanted to happen – it happened unpredictably,” he said.

Om Yentieng said the full investigation of the incident had not yet concluded, but preliminary findings indicated that the crush had ensued after the estimated 10,000 people on the 50 by 5 metre walkway leading to Diamond Island, or Koh Pich, panicked due to the swaying of the bridge.

The inquiry has been based “on the examination of corpses, injured people, witness statements and direct inspection of the site”, Om Yentieng said, adding that the probe is expected to be concluded next week.

Survivors have claimed that those trapped on the bridge received electric shocks from wiring on the structure, but Om Yentieng said this had yet to be substantiated. “The corpses and injured people did not show any sign of electrocution. The electric wires on the bridge were not broken and the lamps were still working.”

“Samdech Akka Moha Sena Padei Techo Hun Sen at the helm of the Royal Government of Cambodia has, with great compassion and shrewdness, ordered every competent authority to make all-out efforts to manage the situation and save lives,” the statement said.

Pung Khiav Se, director general of Canadia Bank and head of the firm developing the Koh Pich complex, told staff members on the island yesterday afternoon that the company should learn from Monday’s tragedy, though he denied responsibility for it. Government officials including Information Minister Khieu Kanharith have said the firm was responsible for security on the island and the bridges that service it, though company officials have blamed the government.

“Our Koh Pich is famous all over the world – not famous in a positive way, but famous in a negative way, even though it was not our mistake,” Pung Khiav Se said. On the suggestion of Kep Chuktema, he said, future traffic on the bridge would be one-way.

“If it had only been one way from the beginning, there would be no such incident,” Pung Khiav Se said. “We could not predict that there would be so many people like that.”

Peter Li, the country director of emergency response NGO Side by Side International, who was on the scene 45 minutes after Monday’s incident, said yesterday’s revised body count was likely more accurate than Wednesday’s reported total, as all bodies were taken immediately to the major hospitals in Phnom Penh.

Li said the mass panic explanation allowed for a diffusion of responsibility. “The simple fact is that whoever is in charge screwed up in crowd control,” Li said.

Beer gardens, nightclubs and other places of entertainment were ordered to close yesterday by the Ministry of Tourism.

At least 339 people died in the stampede, according to Prime Minister Hun Sen, who called it a terrible tragedy. The Water Festival has seen troubles in past years.
An injured Cambodian is carried by police and other visitors after a stampede onto a bridge at an accident site during the last day of celebrations of the water festival in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Monday, Nov. 22

Hundreds died and hundreds more were injured last night in a stampede on Diamond Island’s north bridge, bringing a tragic close to the final day of water festival celebrations in Phnom Penh.

Prime Minister Hun Sen announced via video conference at 2:30am that 339 people had been confirmed dead and 329 injured.

“With this miserable event, I would like to share my condolences with my compatriots and the family members of the victims,” he said.

“This needs to be investigated more.”

A committee would be set up to examine the incident.

“This is the biggest tragedy since the Pol Pot regime,” he said, adding that Cambodia would hold a national day of mourning tomorrow.

The cause of the stampede has not yet been confirmed, but Minister of Information Khieu Kanharith said it happened because “one million people”, many of whom were leaving the island, became “scared of something.”

Municipal Police Chief Touch Naruth also could not confirm the series of events that led to the disaster.

“People were afraid and began to trample each other and some jumped into the river,” he said at the scene.

Bedlam ensued as the frenzied crowd began to push its way off the bridge, causing a jam that made it nearly impossible to breathe, according to witnesses.

With no other escape route, hundreds of people began jumping off the suspension bridge.

Sirens started to awaken city residents minutes later as ambulances, police cars and emergency vehicles began rushing to the scene, where they had to clear away the crowd before reaching victims.

Boats were called in to pull people out of the water and ferry others across the narrow Bassac River to the shore in front of the Royal Palace, where emergency workers fought through the crowd of frantic onlookers to care for the injured.

The bodies of victims were taken away in ambulances, flat-bed trucks and motor-bikes to area hospitals as police struggled to clear away the crowd by shouting, pushing and beating them back with their belts.

As the scene cleared, many bodies remained on the road, which was littered with shoes, shirts, pants and other objects dropped in the mayhem. Pieces of cardboard were placed over the heads of those obviously dead, while bystanders fanned people thought to be still alive.

Area hospitals confirmed that hundreds were either dead on arrival or died soon after, with witnesses on hand giving various explanations for the initial cause of the stampede and the actual cause of deaths.

A doctor at Calmette hospital, who declined to give his name, said after a preliminary assessment the principal causes of death among the victims he had examined were suffocation and electrocution.

Ouk Sokhhoeun, 21, was at the scene with his sister, 23-year-old Ouk Srey Mom, who was left unconscious and taken to Calmette hospital, said that military police started firing water cannons into the crowd on the bridge after the stampede had already caused scores of people to fall unconscious.

He said the water caused many people on the bridge to receive electric shocks from the cables lighting the bridge, at which point “some police also received electric shocks”.

Phnom Penh first became the capital of Cambodia after Ponhea Yat, king of the Khmer Empire, moved the capital from Angkor Thom after it was captured by Siam a few years earlier. There are stupa behind Wat Phnom that house the remains of Ponhea Yat and the royal family as well as the remaining Buddhist statues from the Angkorean era. There is a legend that tells how Phnom Penh was created. In the 1600s, Japanese immigrants settled on the outskirts of Phnom Penh. [4]
It was not until 1866, under the reign of King Norodom I, that Phnom Penh became the permanent seat of government, and the current Royal Palace was built. This marked the beginning of the transformation of what was essentially a riverside village into a city with the French Colonialists expanding the canal system to control the wetlands, filling in lakes, constructing roads and building a port.
By the 1920s, Phnom Penh was known as the Pearl of Asia, and over the next four decades continued to experience growth with the building of a railway to Sihanoukville and the Pochentong International Airport (now Phnom Penh International Airport).