375 killed in Cambodian stampede

Nearly 400 people have been killed and hundreds more injured after a stampede at a festival in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh last night.

Some two million people, mainly from rural Cambodia, gather each year in the city for the three-day annual Bon Om Touk festival which marks the end of the rainy season with a series of boat races and other celebrations.

Panic broke out on Diamond Island, a strip of land at the confluence of the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers near the centre of the capital where a series of events were being held, when the crowd surged across a newly-built bridge.

Some among the throng of people began to fall unconscious, sparking a mass panic which led to hundreds being caught underfoot. Many more jumped or were pushed from the bridge into the river and bodies are still being pulled from the water.

There have been unconfirmed reports that the panic was started by an electrical fault on the bridge. However, Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen’s special adviser Om Yentieng denied this occurred.

Hun Sen, meanwhile, has called the tragedy the country's worst since the time of Khmer Rouge rule in the 1970s.