Cambodia and Thailand have begun a coordinated withdrawal of troops from Preah Vihear temple in preparation for the reopening of the temple’s international border crossing next week.
The crossing has been closed since July 2008, when the disputed temple was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site, triggering a military build-up along the border.
I've still been collecting stampede stuff (videos, photos, links etc) but I'm now putting them on my extra blog under stampede extra.
The survivor we know that I mentioned last week is going ok as far as I can tell. Physically they seems heaps better, before they had trouble walking, and their tummy was really sore after eating. They came with us to church yesterday and shared with members there about the experience. Afterwards with went to a shopping mall and walked around, had a meal and took photos in one of those photo booths with fake backgrounds and borders. I think they are on meds to help them sleep.
Since it happened on Monday, there have been lots of reasons going around in rumours about how and why. Some of the more out there ones include- that the gov planned it, that the former residents of the island put a curse on the island when they were kicked off to make way for the entertainment stuff and that Cambodia is too crowded because of all the illegal Vietnamese people.
The crowds are so dense at that time of year, like a pile of dry hay I don't think it would take much to set off something big, I'm guessing it was a combo of factors- panic may have broken out cos the bridge was swinging cos ppl thought it was going to break, people were probably fainting as it is hard to breath when you are in a crowd etc etc. Seems to be controversial about whether or not people got electrocuted or not. At first all the reports seemed to say it did happen, but then they said there was none. And the death toll rose to 435, but then came back down by about 100......
This website has a few good photos with a caption each- it explains the festival really well with pictures and words. It'll give you the context of the stampede. It doesn't show the density of the crowd that much, I don't think the photographer could take photos where it was really crowded, but he did say that "The visor on my helmet which I was carrying on my belt was torn off by the crush of the crowd. " And that was just a normal water festival afternoon- not the final evening craziness, so that should give you an idea of just how crowded it was on the bridge that night.
"""One survivor, Chan Chhay Loeurt, 25, a student, said he had no idea what happened.
"Just people squeezed together," he said. "I can't move. I can't breathe. I can't breathe in and out. I fell unconscious. When I woke up, I was in a police car next to a dead body.""""
I guess in Australia these people would have some kind of trauma counselling, but there is not the culture and resources for that here. I've read many are still walking around with undiagnosed mental illnesses from Khmer Rouge time, more than 30 years ago.
These photos are from here. They are typical of what has been on TV the last few days. I turned on the TV yesterday and it was showing footage of people walking up and down rows of bodies, lifting the sheet up on each head until they found someone they knew.
In between this they kept replaying scenes from the night it happened, of people and bodies arriving at hospitals. They were piled up in police utes and ambulance vans. It looked like bodies and injured people were all piled in together. Chaos. Peoples shoes and clothes had come off in the crowd.
Also reporters were going around talking to survivors and the victims family and friends. Really shocking stories.
Today on TV a few of the channels are showing people lining up to get money- or maybe they are donating money, I just saw it briefly. They were reading out lists of names and amounts of money.
Click the link above to see where this photo and excerpt come from 24 November 2010 BBC News
Cambodia is holding a day of mourning for more than 450 people killed in a festival stampede.
Prime Minister Hun Sen is due to join officials and grieving relatives for a religious ceremony at the footbridge where the tragedy happened.
A preliminary investigation has found that the swaying of the bridge near the capital, Phnom Penh, triggered a panic.
Witnesses said some people were crushed on the bridge, while others fell into the river and drowned.
Crowds of revellers had been crossing the bridge to reach an island where an annual water festival was being held on Monday.
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I had some errands to do in town this morning. As I rode around I saw heaps of Cambodian flags lining the streets as there always are on special national days. But today they are flying at half mast.
For local news in English check the Phnom Penh Post website. Here is a link to one of todays articles.
An excerpt : “My body seemed to fly into the sky when I got the news my two daughters and one son-in-law had died,” said Moun Phally, who attended the cremation of her daughters following their funeral on Wednesday.
I had trouble getting to sleep last night after hearing what happened to someone we know. This person is alive, which is amazing, but a horrible story to tell from the bridge on Monday night. I actually heard other stories like this persons from others survivors on TV yesterday. But hearing it from someone I know made it feel heaps worse. Please pray for this person's recovery/ healing, both physical and emotional. This person was trampled on, and amongst all the people when they were dying. (This person is a Christian)
Last night our power went off around 8pm, so we just went to bed.Soeun was tired as he had been out in a province all day playing drums and preaching at a youth outreach event organised by some of his students.
This time of year the population of Phnom Penh more than doubles, everyone comes in from the provinces for the annual boat races as part of the festival that marks the changing direction of the river - the river runs backwards here!
Anyway, we don't like crowds so we stay away from the whole thing- kids gets lost, people get trampled, people drown etc. But its so big and festive and fun, people travel from all over the country to be here. But last night it was even worse.
I only checked the internet this morning as I have a relative in hospital in Australia. I was shocked to read that over 300 died last night. From the Phnom Penh Post ,click to read in full
“With this miserable event, I would like to share my condolences with my compatriots and the family members of the victims,” he said.
.......
“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.”.
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“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”.
