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MANILA, Feb 4: Seventy-three people were killed in a stampede at a stadium in Manila on Saturday as they scrambled to get into a popular Philippine television game show offering cash and other prizes.
Some officials had put the death toll at 88, but Health Secretary Francisco Duque said there had been some double-counting of victims, adding that 353 people were injured.
Most of the dead were elderly women, crushed against a closed steel gate at the bottom of a slope or trampled underfoot. One child was also killed.
Some witnesses said chaos erupted when someone shouted ‘bomb’, but others reported a railing collapsed as people were being let into the stadium, causing guards to panic and slam shut the gate on the surging crowd.
“My mother came here hoping to win a prize,” said one man in his 20s, holding her dead hand and sobbing.
Some tickets for the first anniversary celebration of the game show ‘Wowowee’, which picks contestants at random from the audience, were given out earlier in the week.
But thousands of fans, many of them poor, camped out for days for a chance at the usual jackpot of one million pesos ($19,230) and special prizes of a car and a house with land.
Ambulances had trouble reaching the scene because of the large crowd, which police estimated at up to 25,000.
“The slope was so steep that when one person stumbled, they fell like dominoes,” said Manila’s police chief.
Before being taken to hospital morgues, the bodies were lined up on the street, their faces covered with towels and newspapers. Hundreds of shoes and flip-flops were scattered on the pavement.
TICKET OUT OF POVERTY: After President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo visited the injured at a government hospital, some of her foes said the tragedy reflected the desperation of Filipinos with few opportunities.
“People would not risk being crushed to death for handouts if times were good,” said Aquilino Pimentel, an opposition senator.
The Philippines is no stranger to large-scale disasters, most often involving typhoons, volcanoes, earthquakes or ferries, as well as deadly attacks by rebels.
Stampedes are rare, although a crush at a crowded religious procession in Manila last month killed one man and injured 20.
The ABS-CBN network cancelled the ‘Wowowee’ anniversary event and said it would pay for funeral and hospital expenses.
The show’s host, Willie Revillame, sobbed on live television as he apologised to thousands who refused to leave the stadium.
“All we wanted to do is to help and bring cheer,” he said as some in the crowd chanted ‘Wowowee’ and “It’s not your fault” before all fell silent for a minute of prayer.
Vice President de Castro, a former newscaster at ABS-CBN, took the stage to offer assurances the government would investigate the disaster.
‘Wowowee’, on six days a week for two hours at midday, is one of the most-watched shows in the Philippines and by communities of Filipinos living abroad.
“The guards could not control the crowd. People were climbing on the roof of a pathway, scaling the fences just to get inside and rushing to a narrow gate,” Susan Doblin, who travelled from the central island of Leyte, said.
“We’re very poor. I waited for days outside to try our luck. This is a rare chance for us to win a million pesos.” —Reuters
