MONDAY night’s deadly stampede in Phnom Penh could not have befallen Cambodia with more miserable timing. Coming at the height of the water festival—one of the most popular holidays in the Cambodian calendar—the incident cut short three joyous days of concerts, carnival rides and dragon-boat races. Instead a black pall of mourning hangs over the capital.
At least 378 people were killed, either crushed to death on a narrow footbridge or drowned in the shallow riverbed below as they fell from it. The bridge spans a part of the Tonle Sap, connecting the city proper to Diamond island, a newly built shopping and entertainment district. It is not clear what caused the panic that turned the festival crowd into a stampede; rumours abound.
The enormity of the incident has prompted comparisons to the ravages of the Khmer Rouge regime, whose 1975-79 rule resulted in the deaths of an estimated quarter of the population. As disasters go, these two are perhaps not much alike. But needless to say, Cambodians do not invoke the comparison lightly.
Amid the stream of condolences, criticisms of the government’s handling of the festival have started to mount. Sam Rainsy, a leader of the opposition who has lived in self-imposed exile since being convicted on a series of questionable charges, came out swinging. He told Australian radio that this tragedy is the fault of government corruption and incompetence.
“This again is reminiscent of the killing in the past, but I think these killings could have been prevented. So we have to find out the responsibility of those in charge of organising the festival and handling the crowd,” he said.
Mr Rainsy blames the government for allowing private companies to evict local residents to clear the way for the Diamond island development, which he described as a haven of “luxurious compounds” for the rich. That, plus not taking action to prevent crowding on the narrow footbridge.
In many ways, the horror on the bridge can be seen to represent an outgrowth of the all that ails the country’s civic life: a mixture of endemic corruption, poor planning and an indolent attitude towards rules and regulations.
The water festival, which sees a city of around 1.2m swell to more than double its normal size, has ever been a disaster waiting to happen. Every year the entire centre of Phnom Penh is snarled with hundreds of thousands of rural visitors, many of whom sleep in temples, schools and sidewalks during the period of the festival. With so many people and vehicles thronging the roads, Cambodia’s informal protocol for traffic—small gives way sheepishly to large—collapses into anarchy. It is almost surprising that a disaster on this scale had never happened earlier.
Professor G. Keith Still, a senior consultant in crowd management at G4S Secure Solutions, a British security company, told the Phnom Penh Post that a number of “simple and cost-effective measures” based on an understanding of the principles of crowd dynamics could easily have prevented the tragedy. If one good thing comes out of the Monday’s disaster, it is that the issue is now squarely on the agenda.
While Hun Sen’s government is set to weather this storm—it has already paid 5m riels ($1,250) to each victim’s family—anything like a recurrence could have more serious political consequences. In bureaucratic circles, some heads will probably roll, though not those most deserving of it. The more urgent question is whether the government can do anything to prevent ever-larger crowds from creating ever-greater calamities in the future.
[Published on The Economist blog, November 23, 2010]
