Shanghai copes with trauma

People console a relative of a Shanghai stampede victim on Friday. [Photo by Lai Xinxin/For China Daily]

29 victims remain in hospital; city will enhance precautions in public venue

Twenty-nine people remained hospitalized on Friday after a stampede at the Bund, a well-known tourist site in Shanghai, that killed 36 others on New Year's Eve.

Two of those being treated were admitted on Thursday afternoon, the day after the tragedy. Twenty people have been discharged, municipal health authorities said.

But 10 people are seriously injured, four of them in critical condition.

Relatives or co-workers of 28 of those hospitalized have been contacted, said Wu Jinglei, a spokesman for the Shanghai Health and Family Planning Commission.

A team of 40 mental health workers, including eight psychologists, and many volunteers were organized to help the injured and their families to cope with the situation.

The identities of 35 people who died have been released. Most were young women and college students not yet 30 years old, and the youngest victim was 12.

Police have not said what caused the tragedy, but they dismissed speculation it was triggered by people throwing coupons resembling US bank notes to revelers from a nearby building.

The investigation and surveillance cameras show that the coupons were thrown from a bar at Bund 18, about 60 meters from the stampede, and that it was after the tragedy, Shanghai police said.

The city has suspended permits for almost all large-scale activities.

On Friday, more pictures and video clips of the stampede were posted online.

In one clip, several young people standing on the elevated viewing platform near Chen Yi Square shout "step back" toward the tightly packed crowd.

"I was with three friends on the viewing platform," said a young man identified by xinmin.com.cn as Xiaojun. They saw people fall on the lowest step of the staircase and joined others shouting to the crowd not to step forward.

Xiaojun said that after the stampede, people held hands to form a pathway through the crowd so the injured could be evacuated.