New Years Eve stampede kills 35 in Shanghai after reports fake money thrown from building Thirty-five people have been killed in a New Years Eve stampede in Shanghai, local authorities say, possibly caused by people rushing to pick up fake money thrown from a building. The Shanghai government said that large crowds started to stampede in Chen Yi Square on the Bund just before midnight. Dozens of others were reportedly injured and the government said they were being treated in three local hospitals including Shanghai General Hospital. It was not immediately clear what triggered the stampede, but state media and a witness said the incident was caused when people tried picking up fake money thrown from a building. A man who brought one of the injured to a local hospital for treatment said fake money had been thrown down from a bar above the street as a New Years celebration. He said people rushed to pick up the money, triggering the stampede The official Xinhua news service reported the stampede began at 11:35pm (local time). Photos posted on social media showed people receiving first aid on the road and large numbers of police cordoning off the area. In some photographs, rescue workers were seen trying to resuscitate victims lying on the pavement while ambulances waited nearby. A photo on the website of the Shanghai Daily newspaper showed what appeared to be dead and injured people lying on the ground with crowds still in the background. Another photo on social media appeared to show people being crushed to death as a crowd pressed against a barrier. Images from earlier in the night showed densely packed crowds of revellers along the Bund, a famed tourist areas that runs along the bank of the Huangpu River. Relatives frustrated by lack of information Dozens of distraught relatives gathered in the hospital lobby waiting for news, with some expressing frustration over a lack of information. Many relatives have asked to go inside and asked the hospital to give us a list of the injured, including the conscious and unconscious ones who are being treated in there, but nobody got back to us, said a relative who gave her family name as Fan. Six hours have passed, but we still dont have any information. The official Xinhua news agency said many of the injured were students. President Xi Jinping has told the Shanghai government to get to the bottom of the incident as soon as possible and learn the lessons, and ordered governments across the country to ensure a similar disaster cannot happen again, state television said. The Bund is the former financial district of Chinas commercial hub and now a popular tourist destination, packed with high-end restaurants and expensive boutiques. The site for last nights celebrations, including the countdown to midnight, was moved to a new location specifically out of concerns about over-crowding, after nearly 300,000 people turned out last year, the Shanghai Daily newspaper said on its website. Most large gatherings in China are carefully controlled by authorities but the country has seen other incidents in which overcrowding has caused panic and deaths. Last year, 14 people - some of them children - were killed and 10 injured in a stampede that broke out as food was being distributed at a mosque in Chinas Ningxia region. Also last year, six students were killed in a stampede at a primary school in Kunming city in the south-west after the accidental blocking of a stairway corridor. Source: ABC News
Posted on: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 02:28:56 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015