MANILA, 5 February 2006 — Seventy-four people were killed and over 500 injured in a stampede at a stadium in Manila yesterday as they scrambled to get into a popular television game show offering cash and other prizes. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo ordered a rapid investigation into the tragedy.

Most of the dead were elderly women, crushed against a closed steel gate at the bottom of a slope or trampled underfoot. One child was killed, hospital officials said.

Some witnesses said chaos erupted when someone shouted “bomb” but others reported a railing collapsed as people were being let into the stadium, causing guards to panic and slam shut the gate on the surging crowd.

“My mother came here hoping to win a prize,” said one man in his 20s, holding her dead hand and sobbing.

Some tickets for the first anniversary celebration of the game show “Wowowee,” which picks contestants at random from the audience, were given out earlier in the week.

But thousands of fans, many of them poor, camped out for days for a chance at the usual jackpot of 1 million pesos ($19,230) and special prizes of a car and a house with land.

Ambulances had trouble reaching the scene because of the large crowd, which police estimated at up to 25,000.

“The slope was so steep that when one person stumbled, they fell like dominoes,” said Manila’s police chief, Vidal Querol.

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said 74 people were killed, including a person who died of massive bleeding more than 12 hours after the stampede, and another 514 were injured. Most of the injured had been sent home, but more than a dozen remained hospitalized with serious injuries such as fractures, severe cuts and contusions, and mental shock, he said.

Arroyo ordered authorities to conduct a thorough investigation and submit a report to her in 72 hours.

A government investigative body summoned the host of the show, comedian Willie Revillame, and organizer ABS-CBN for an interview today.

Wowowee is hugely popular in the Philippines. Entry is free, but for yesterday’s first anniversary show only the first 300 were eligible to play games in which they might win up to 1 million pesos ($19,230) in cash or a fully furnished house.

“The gates were being partially opened then shut,” said Myrna Britania, 42, who spoke at a hospital as she awaited news of friends and relatives who had been injured. “The raffle tickets can be obtained at the gate so everyone was in a hurry. There was pushing and people in front of the gate were crushed.”

Britania, who had spent all night in line, said “people at the back of the line were pushing, not knowing there were already people dead lying on the ground in front.”

The ABS-CBN network canceled the “Wowowee” anniversary event and said it would pay for funeral and hospital expenses.

Comedian Revillame sobbed on live television as he apologized to thousands who refused to leave the stadium. “All we wanted to do is to help and bring cheer,” he said as some in the crowd chanted “Wowowee” and “It’s not your fault” before all fell silent for a minute of prayer.

“Wowowee,” on six days a week for two hours at midday, is one of the most-watched shows in the Philippines and by communities of Filipinos living abroad.

— Additional input from agencies