A view of a stampede is seen during the New Year’s celebration on the Bund, a waterfront area in central Shanghai, Dec. 31, 2014.
Last updated on: December 31, 2014 9:33 PM
BEIJING—A New Year’s stampede at one of the most iconic tourist spots in Shanghai has left at least 35 people dead and more than 40 others injured.
Shanghai authorities said the stampede started in Chen Yi Square, on the city’s famed waterfront tourist strip known as the Bund, less than half an hour before midnight.
The cause of the stampede had not been confirmed, but China’s Xinhua news agency quoted a witness who said the rush started after someone began throwing what appeared to be money from a building above the crowds. A photo posted on the website of Chinese language broadcaster Phoenix Television showed fake dollar bills scattered on the ground.
A woman who was on the Bund described chaotic scenes. “There were just too many people and nowhere people could escape to,” she said, declining to give her name.
Photos posted on social media at the time showed massive crowds. In one photo, a sea of New Year’s revelers surrounded cars parked in the street as if they were swallowing them up. Other photos showed how police had to join hands to keep the surging crowds back and clear a way for ambulances to carry away the injured. They were taken to four different hospitals in the city.
At the Shanghai First People’s Hospital on Thursday morning, some people were growing anxious as they waited for more information about their loved ones’ conditions.
