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Probe into Beijing stampede
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2004-02-08 09:02

China's State Council has sent an inspection team to Beijing's suburban Miyun County, where a tragic stampede during this year's Lantern Festival celebration killed 37 people.

The team is headed by Wang Dexue, deputy-director of the State Administration for Supervision of Production Safety.

It is the State Council's practice to send inspection teams to accidents in which 30 or more people die.

China's top leaders promised Friday to investigate a stampede at a Lantern Festival gathering in Beijing that killed 37 people who were among tens of thousands celebrating the end of China's lunar New Year holiday.

Many of the victims suffocated. The dead included 27 females and 10 males. The oldest was 68 and the youngest seven.

Fifteen were injured and another nine were treated for "slight injuries" yesterday morning, Beijing government spokesman Wu Kun said.

Four seriously injured people were out of danger yesterday. One of the injured has woken up from coma and the three others are out of serious danger though two are still in a coma.

Revelers were crowded onto a bridge at a popular park in the northern suburb of Miyun County on Thursday night when someone tripped and triggered a chain reaction.

President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao ordered a thorough investigation into what happened and why.

Thursday's accident occurred at 7:45pm in Mihong Park when one person fell down on the bridge and panic ensued, Wu said. More than 30,000 people were at the park when the crowd stampeded.

At the park, the size of four football fields, about 200 people gathered around the bridge yesterday morning to quietly watch police take measurements.

The concrete-and-metal bridge, arched over a frozen river, was blocked off and appeared damaged; it was littered with jewelry, bits of broken plastic and dried wax from lanterns.

 
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