Shanghai New Year stampede kills 36

SHANGHAI, Jan. 1 (Xinhua) -- The death toll of a fatal stampede during New Year celebrations late Wednesday in Shanghai rose to 36 as of Thursday afternoon, local authorities said.

Seven injured have checked out of hospital. Among the 40 injured being treated in local hosptals, 13 are suffering from serious injuries, the municipal government said.

The tragedy happened at a crowded square in Shanghai's gleaming Bund area at around 11:35 p.m. There were 25 women among the deceased whose ages ranged from 16 to 36, said the authorities of Shanghai, a metropolis that is home to a population of over 23 million.

Most of the injured are young people in their twenties, a majority of them women. There were also college students and children, medical sources told Xinhua.

Police are investigating the cause of the stampede.

The Bund, a stretch of riverbank on the west side of the Huangpu River in Shanghai, is a popular destination for New Year celebrations, with its historical architecture and skyscrapers along the river displaying dazzling light shows at night.

HELLISH SCENE

Survivors described the stampede as "horrific and hellish."

Some said they were standing on the steps adjoining the major road and the sightseeing platform when the deadly incident happened.

"The steps leading to the platform were full of people. Some wanted to get down and some wanted to go up," said a witness who gave her surname as Yin. "We were caught in the middle and saw some girls falling while screaming. Then people started to fall down, row by row."

The woman said she covered two kids in front of her with her arms in the chaos. Her son followed her.

"When we brought him out of the crowd, his forehead was bruised, he had two deep creased scars on his neck, and his mouth and nose were bleeding," said the mother.

Dirty shoe prints covered her son's clothes when the 12-year-old boy came to safety.

"The crowd was in a panic. We stood in the crowd, feeling squeezed and almost out of breath," another witness, surnamed Yu, said. "Some yelled for help, but the noise was too loud."

Other survivors said police rushed to the scene and tried to pull out people who were stuck, but without much success.

"The chaos lasted several minutes, then some of the injured were seen being carried out of the crowd," Yu said.

"MONEY THROWING"

Some survivors said the stampede was triggered when people started to throw coupons resembling U.S. banknotes to revelers outside a bar on the windy night.

Witness Wu Tao said some coupons were being thrown from a building's third-floor window near the Bund, and people standing along the river bank started to scramble for the coupons.

The coupons looked like U.S. hundred dollar bills with "M18" printed in the middle, referring to a bar of the same name on the Bund.

Phone calls to the bar were immediately hung up after being answered.

Some said on social media that they found pictures of the bar owner showing off the coupons before the incident.

But the blogger, who called herself "Chaojidadadashabao_MissShen" on Sina Weibo, denied she threw any coupons in the incident.

IMMEDIATE PROBE

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday demanded an immediate investigation into the cause of a stampede and urged prevention of such incidents in the future.

The city has set up a working team for rescue operations and to deal with the aftermath.

The local authorities told Xinhua that one of the victims was a female student from the Shanghai-based Fudan University, one of China's most prestigious universities. The student, surnamed Du from Yunnan Province, was fatally injured during the incident and died later in the hospital.

Fatal incidents like this one were not rare in China, the world's most populous country. Stampedes in the past were mainly due to safety loopholes.

In September 2014, six students were killed in a stampede at a primary school in Yunnan Province after a stairway was blocked. In January 2014, a mosque stampede killed 14 people and injured another 10 in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. In 2004, a stampede on a bridge in suburban Beijing killed 37 during a local lantern festival.