November 23rd
has been an incredibly sad day, with the news of the terrible tragedy
of the deaths of almost 400 people in Phnom Penh, at the closing of
the annual water festival, one of Cambodia’s biggest celebrations.
Every year around three million people from the provinces come to
Phnom Penh to enjoy the festival marking the end of rainy season, the
reversal of the flow of the Tonle Sap river, and to give thanks to
the river which gives life to the people through its fish supplies
and irrigation of the surrounding farmlands. Three days of dragon
boat races on the river and nightly concerts held in several outdoor
locations around the city’s riverside area provide the
entertainment and festivities which usually are defined by a carnival
atmosphere. All was going to script, until something happened which
caused thousands of people to panic at the end of the third day.
Reports state that people were pushing to get on and off the bridge
to Diamond Island, a small piece of land just offshore from the main
riverside area, and at around 11:00pm something changed and there was
a stampede. Women and teenagers being the most vulnerable because of
their size and strength, made up most of the numbers of the dead. A
doctor at the hospital which received the bodies of the dead and
dying, made a statement to the local English language newspaper that
the cause of death of most of the people he had attended to was
suffocation or electrocution. There have been reports that after the
stampede started, military police fired water cannons onto the
bridge, connecting with unsafe lighting, and some of the crowd were
electrocuted. The bridge looks great at night, with festive lights
strung across from end to end. It’s difficult to think about, but
it doesn’t take much imagination to come up with a scenario where
thousands of people are trapped on a bridge, panicked and trying to
get off, some over the sides of the bridge into the water, some of
those people becoming electrocuted, and those people crushed against
thousands of others…. A dark day indeed. I am thankful that none
of my work colleagues, nor the friends I have been able to talk to, and even the tuk tuk driver I use
often who said he would go with me to the final night, were not
there, and are all ok. The streets of Phnom Penh have had a sombre
mood today, with the conspicuous absence of the usual busy-ness, not
many people around, and a definite sense of emptiness. What a tragic irony that a festival staged to express gratitude for giving life, has taken so much away. Tears have
filled my eyes many times today; as I listen to the radio broadcast
of the grieving woman who lost her entire family during the Pol Pol
regime and had only a son left, only for him to die in the crush last night; as
I read the news updates online and learn of the bodies piled one on
top of another in the tents of the makeshift hospital morgue; as I
imagine the teenagers in their party clothes, dressed for a night of
fun; and on the walk to the evening market near my apartment to buy
dinner, seeing on the footpath outside house after house, offerings
of food, water, incense and candles for those lost. I feel
incredibly sad, and really wonder, when the Cambodian people
are going to get a break. Still, the young kids are out as usual, playing badminton in the street outside my apartment, and they, better than anything, serve as a reminder that life goes on.
This past year and a half
of working in Thailand and Cambodia has taught me a lot about many
things, and by default, about myself. I have also discovered that I
feel a deep connection with humanity, and perhaps this is why I feel
like it is here that I really live.
