Survivors of Cambodian bridge crush describe narrow escapes (Feature)

By Robert Carmichael Nov 23, 2010, 8:06 GMT

Phnom Penh - 'I tried to help the woman's child, but I couldn't do any more than pick him up and lift him above the crowd so he could breathe,' said 19-year-old Buot Panha.

'That was all I could do,' he said in a soft voice, 'because I was struggling to breathe too.'

Buot Panha was one of thousands of people trapped on a bridge in Phnom Penh late Monday evening. The government said 349 died and 378 were injured in the stampede.

He was speaking at Calmette Hospital, one of eight medical facilities that struggled to deal with the aftermath of Cambodia's deadliest incident in decades.

Two friends sat with him in the central courtyard while they waited for two others who were in a ward recovering from their injuries.

The tragedy happened when a crowd of thousands panicked while crossing a small bridge connecting an entertainment area on Diamond Island to the mainland of Phnom Penh.

The stampede happened around 9:30 pm (1430 GMT) Monday, the final day of the annual Water Festival, an event that every year attracts millions to the capital.

Buot Panha said people saw clouds looming in the night sky and, worried that it would rain, chose to leave at the same time over the bridge.

Ly Vuthy, a vendor who witnessed the incident from her stall on the island, said well over a thousand people were on the bridge trying to leave when several fainted.

The crowd then panicked, she said, and people were packed so tightly on the bridge they were unable to move off it.

'People were feeling trapped and claustrophobic, and many jumped off the bridge,' she said.

Another vendor, Sem Pagnaseth, was selling drinks near the bridge's mainland exit. He said barriers that were in place to prevent people from walking onto the road meant those exiting the bridge were unable to move away quickly. The rest backed up behind them.

Sem Pagnaseth said few police were doing crowd control before the incident, but added that quick action by the police - who other witnesses said beat back people trying to crowd on to the bridge - prevented an even worse tragedy.

Buot Panha said his height was his saving grace.

'I was in the middle of the bridge but because I was tall I could push my head up and breathe,' he said. 'I couldn't move forward or back, it was just so crowded.'

The women and children were shorter, he said, and they had the most difficult time. The statistics bear that out: two-thirds of those killed or injured were women.

As the crush continued, another man told Buot Panha and other young men to jump off the bridge into the water to try and reduce the crush.

So he handed back the child, worked his way to the side of the bridge, and jumped. He said that saved his life.

Those less fortunate could be found toward the rear of Calmette Hospital, where two large tents stood in the car park.

The living cluster around one tent, peering in through the white canvas as police took fingerprints from dozens of dead, who lay on rattan mats under white sheets.

The other tent was empty; the bodies that were laid out here had already been claimed.

Next to the makeshift morgue, authorities were dealing with relatives, processing paperwork and ensuring that people got cash and assistance to take the bodies of their loved ones home.

At one nearby table a family sat and wept in front of a framed photograph of a young boy.

Military trucks were lined up, ready to transport the dead home. Cultural reasons, said Minister of Information Khieu Kanharith, mean people would not take the dead in their cars.

Buot Panha knew how close he came to being in these white tents. His friend Neang Sovannara came even closer: When the police were clearing the bridge of the dead and injured, they found him breathing faintly and revived him.

And what of the woman and the two children? Buot Panha had to hand the child back in order to work his way towards the side so that he could jump off.

'The two kids probably died; the mother too,' he said. 'She was yelling for people to help.'

It was Buot Panha's first Water Festival in Phnom Penh.

'I couldn't believe something like this could happen - it's unbelievable so many people died,' he said. 'I will never come back.'

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