A government investigation has found that thousands of revelers cramming a suspension bridge over the Bassac River Monday night panicked as it began to sway under their weight. Some shouted that the structure was going to collapse, the crowd pushed and heaved, setting off the stampede.
“People became panicked when they saw other people fall down, and they started running when they heard cries that the bridge was going to collapse,” city police chief Touch Naroth said on Wednesday.
Om Yentieng, a member of the government’s investigating committee, said there were no signs that any of the dead had been electrocuted as some earlier reports suggested.
The committee is expected to release its final report next week, said Om Yentieng.
There has been confusion over the death toll. The latest official casualty tally was 347 dead and 395 injured, down from earlier official figures.
Om Yentieng said earlier casualty figures were not correct due to overlapping of counts by various institutions.
Prime Minister Hun Sen has described the stampede as the biggest tragedy since the communist Khmer Rouge’s reign of terror, which killed an estimated 1.7 million people in the late 1970s.
The stampede happened during celebrations of a three-day holiday marking the end of the monsoon season, when as many as 2 million people are believed to have come to the capital. As festivities wrapped up Monday night, tens of thousands flocked to a free concert on an island in the Bassac River.
