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| 648 Dead, 322 Hurt in Iraq Bridge Stampede |
| Wednesday, August 31, 2005 |
At least 648 people were killed in a stampede on a bridge Wednesday when panic engulfed a Shiite religious procession amid rumors that a suicide bomber was about to attack, officials said. It was the single biggest confirmed loss of life in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion.
Scores jumped or were pushed to their deaths into the Tigris River about 30 feet below the bridge, while others were crushed in the crowd. Most of the dead were women and children, Interior Ministry spokesman Lt. Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman said.
Tensions already had been running high in the procession in Baghdad's heavily Shiite Kazimiyah district because of a mortar attack two hours earlier against the shrine where the marchers were heading. The shrine was about a mile from the bridge.
Abdul-Rahman said 648 were killed and 322 injured, although figures from other official sources varied slightly. Survivors were taken in ambulances and private cars to several hospitals, where officials scrambled to compile accurate casualty figures.
Hundreds of thousands of Shiites had been marching across the bridge, which links a Sunni and Shiite neighborhood, heading for the tomb of Imam Mousa al-Kadhim, a 9th century Shiite saint
"We were on the bridge. It was so crowded. Thousands of people were surrounding me," said survivor Fadhel Ali, 28, barefoot and soaking wet. "We heard that a suicide attacker was among the crowd. Everybody was yelling, so I jumped from the bridge into the river, swam and reached the bank. I saw women, children and old men falling after me into the water."
Health Minister Abdul-Mutalib Mohammed told state-run Iraqiya television that there were "huge crowds on the bridge and the disaster happened when someone shouted that there is a suicide bomber on the bridge."
"This led to a state of panic among the pilgrims and they started to push each other and there was many cases of suffocation," he said.
Police, however, said they found no explosives - either on any individual or in any cars parked nearby. |
posted by Jay Are @ 12:16:00 PM   |
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| 2 Comments: |
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This is tagic, and we will all hear how this is Bush's fault too.
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This is tagic, and we will all hear how this is Bush's fault too.