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Over 330 killed in stampede at Cambodian festival

Crowds attending full moon festival surge onto bridge, causing huge crush.

An injured Cambodian is carried by another visitor after a stampede on a bridge in Phnom Penh.
An injured Cambodian is carried by another visitor after a stampede on a bridge in Phnom Penh.
Image: Heng Sinith/AP/Press Association Images

OVER 330 PEOPLE HAVE BEEN killed in a stampede on a bridge at a festival in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

The Water Festival, which is celebrated every October or November during the full moon, was being attended by about one million people.

The Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen said that 339 people were killed, the BBC reports.

Sen said the cause of the stampede was not immediately clear, and a committee would be set up to investigate the incident, the Bangkok Post reports.

Witnesses said some people in the crowd began pushing onto the bridge, sparking off the stampede.

Al Jazeera reports that the festival marks the reversal of flow between the Tonle Sap river and Mekong River.

Some eyewitnesses said that some people were electrocuted by wiring running through the bridge after police fire water canons at the crowds in order to encourage people to disperse, according to this CNN report:


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