Cambodia mourns bridge tragedy

(REUTERS)

Cambodia's prime minister cried as he lit candles and incense to mourn the hundreds of perople trampled to death in a riverside stampede on Monday.

Flags flew at half staff across the country and bars and nightclubs shut on the official day of mourning for the tragedy, in which at least 347 people were killed and hundreds more were injured. A government investigation has found that thousands of people cramming a suspension bridge over the Bassac river panicked as it began to sway under their weight. Some shouted that the structure was going to collapse, the crowd pushed and heaved, setting off the stampede.

The Prime Minister, Hun Sen, has described the stampede as the biggest tragedy since the communist Khmer Rouge's reign of terror, which killed an estimated 1.7 million people in the late 1970s.