20 Die in Hong Kong New Year’s Stampede
Twenty New Year’s revelers were trampled to death early today when thousands of local and foreign party-goers stampeded through a packed bar and restaurant district in central Hong Kong, police said.
Revelers, mostly in their teens and twenties, rushed down a steep hillside street shortly after the stroke of midnight, only to slip on cobblestones drenched with spilled beer and party foam.
Thousands more poured out of narrow alleys in the Lan Kwai Fong district, and the Chinese and Western party-goers were trampled underfoot.
Police and witnesses said 20 people were killed and 31 seriously injured. Bobby Yip, a photographer for the British news agency Reuters, said the casualties included both local people and foreigners.
“I saw 20 or 30 people lying on the ground. About half of them were Chinese and about half foreigners,” he said.
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