New Year celebrations across Shanghai were cancelled today after 36 people were killed and scores more injured in a stampede on the Bund just minutes before midnight.
At least 47 people were injured amid the chaos in the city’s popular riverfront tourist district about half an hour before midnight, according to a statement released by the city government. Thirteen are in a critical condition, the authorities said on the government’s social media account.
Most of those killed and injured in the stampede were young people in their 20s, including college students, the official Xinhua news agency said.
The authorities in Shanghai cancelled all New Year celebrations on Thursday as President Xi Jinping instructed them to “do everything in their power” to help those injured and launch an immediate investigation into the cause of the stampede, according to state media.
Local media quoted survivors and witnesses describing the chaotic scene as waves of spectators in a square swarmed onto a raised platform for a viewing spot of a New Year’s Eve light show and pushed against those coming off, with people pressed so tightly together that they couldn’t breathe.
As exhausted people fell or were knocked down, tripping more behind them, panic quickly spread through the huge crowds, with “young girls screaming desperately for their lives and the sounds of all sorts of curses around”, wrote one eyewitness on social media.
One man caught in the crush was quoted on a social media account of a 21st Century Business Herald journalist as saying that the chaos lasted for about 10 minutes.
“I was surrounded by cries for help from women and the sounds of beating and cursing,” he said. “All I could do was try to keep my upper body in the air to ensure that I could breathe.
“There were people behind me grabbing my hair, struggling for breath, and a girl held me saying, ‘Help me, I can’t hold on much longer'”. There were also women who had fallen silent beneath me.”
When the crowds finally thinned, dozens of victims were seen lying unconscious or moaning on the ground and on top of each other. Volunteers and survivors helped carry some victims to open areas and tried to resuscitate them as others started calling the police and emergency services.
“That was when we heard the count down: 5, 4, 3…” wrote one witness on Weibo.
“There were just too many people and nowhere people could escape to,” said a woman witness who declined to give her name.
At Shanghai No1 People’s Hospital, waves of anxious people were rushing to the emergency ward on Thursday morning, looking for their loved ones after hearning of the midnight stampede in the news.
Some said they had lost contact with their children or friends and were worried that they might be among the casualties.They were barred from entering the ward by policemen and hospital security guards, while police circulated pictures and name lists of injured victims who had been sent to several city hospitals, asking family members to identify them.
