Pier Collapses in Malaysia; 30 Killed, 300 Hurt

A pier jammed with thousands of people going to an island festival collapsed Sunday in northwestern Malaysia, killing at least 30 people and injuring about 300, Malaysian officials said.

Mazlan Ariffin, deputy police chief in Butterworth, a coastal city 190 miles northwest of the capital, said he expects the death toll to rise because 40 of the injured are in critical condition, the official Bernama news agency reported.

Ariffin said a huge crowd was waiting for ferries to take them to Penang Island, about 3 miles across the Strait of Malacca, for a festival when a 40-foot-long section of the pier collapsed.

Syed Mohammed Aidid, chairman of the Penang Ports Commission, which operates the ferry terminal, said there usually are only 200 people at a time on the section that collapsed. He said that more than 300 people were moving across it to enter a ferry when it gave way and that more than 3,000 people were lined up behind them.

The festival, when Chinese offer prayers to Kwan Yin, the goddess of mercy, is held once every 60 years. Of Malaysia’s 16 million people, about 4.8 million are Chinese.

There were no reports of foreigners among the casualties.

One of the injured, Jenny Ang, a 13-year-old student from Butterworth, described the scene to the news agency: “I managed to cling to the edge of the platform and was helped up by a man.

“Below me . . . I saw a whole load of people piled down. . . . There was total pandemonium and chaos with people rushing to get out of the human pile.”

Ang suffered only a slight facial injury.

Many people fell onto a platform about 40 feet below. The platform permitted vehicular access to ferries and was the site of a port commission office. Three cars waiting to board the ferry were crushed, and the port commission office was destroyed.

Ariffin said 17 bodies were recovered at the scene and 13 people died at the Butterworth district hospital.

Dr. Lim Chong Eu, Penang state chief minister, told reporters that 475 people were involved in the collapse. He said 30 were confirmed dead.