Hundreds dead in stampede at Cambodian festival.

[gobulls83]

Here's the AP:

I lived in Cambodia for two years. The Water Festival going on there is a crazy time, surreal during your first experience and a time to get as far away from the city as possible during any subsequent ones. There are four rivers that meet near Phnom Penh, and one of them, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonl%C3%A9_Sap">Tonle Sap</a>, is the only river in the world to regularly reverse direction. During the rainy season, it flows south from a river of the same name into the Mekong River, the seventh-largest river in Asia. During the dry season, beginning usually sometime in late November, the river turns around and replenishes the lake.

The festival commemorates this event, and millions of people from the countryside come into the capital, sleeping on sidewalks, streets, the few spots of grass to be found in the city and anywhere else they can find. The city shuts down, with not a business in sight open. Many of Phnom Penh's residents evacuate the onslaught of outsiders, heading to home villages. Cambodia is heavily rural outside of the capital, so for most foreigners options are more limited. My first year, I stayed in town to take in the atmosphere. My second, I escaped to a beach town along the Gulf of Thailand.

It's impossible to move around in the city during the festival. Moving two blocks takes 45 minutes on foot, and forget driving motorbikes (the primary method of transportation for most in the country) or cars. The mobs are unbelievable. Drinking, games of many varieties, paddle boat races and, at least the year I was there, a parade of boats bearing sails with the logos of the various government ministries at night that just, to me at least, reeked of the country's communist past.

In any case, this incident is sadly unsurprising. Tragic, of course, but a statement on Cambodia today. The country's health care is poor at best, not suited to handle this sort tragedy, and corruption in all levels of government and all aspects of life are a fact of life in Cambodia.

I haven't found a good way to donate to help the injured or families who lost a member, but when I do I'll share it here in case anyone would like to help.

[BULLO12]

I suggest checking with the Red Cross and/or the Salvation Army I am certain one of those two organizations would have the information you are looking for.

[smazza]

anyone we can sue?