In Iraq, a man-made disaster

One thousand feared dead after Shia pilgrims are caught in stampede

By Robert Fisk, Middle East Correspondent, and agencies

Published: 01 September 2005

Martyrdom has always been a foundation of the Shia Muslim faith. But yesterday's tragedy gave it new meaning: possibly as many as 1,000 men, women and children were killed when they fell from a bridge over the Tigris river in Baghdad, apparently fearful that a suicide bomber had been let loose among them.

There was no bomber. But there was death on a massive scale as hundreds of Shia Muslims fell over the railings of the narrow bridge. Hundreds of children were among the dead.

Bodies drifted for hours downriver from the Qadimiya district of Baghdad. Soldiers who fired their rifles into the air compounded the carnage.

Several mortar rounds had earlier exploded on the road, leading many of the marchers - commemorating the death in 799 of Imam Moussa ibn Jaafar al-Qadim, one of Shiism's 12 principal saints - to believe they were under attack. At least a million Shia pilgrims were walking to the Qadimiya mosque when the crowd, trampled upon, crushed against barricades and hurled into the river, fell from the Aima bridge. Children could be seen drowning in the Tigris in what was the greatest loss of life in Iraq since the invasion of the country in 2003. Hundreds of sandals, foot packages and headdresses were heaped on the bridge after the deaths; hospitals were overwhelmed by the number of corpses brought to their mortuaries. At one point, Shia pilgrims could be seen hurling themselves from the bridge into the Tigris as they became crushed between panicking civilians.

Others fell from the end of the bridge and landed on the shore, their bodies crashing down amid the swings of a riverside children's park. "I saw an old woman, who was completely panicked and crying, throw herself from the bridge," Khalid Fadhil, a goldsmith who witnessed the stampede, told a reporter from The Washington Post. "I saw another man falling on the bricks of the shore who died immediately. I saw seven people were brought dead near the end of the bridge, smothered. Other people were running and shouting 'Allahu Akbar' [God is great]."

"Whoever was able to swim and knew how to swim survived. The people who didn't know died," said Sattar Jabbar, 22, a fighter in the Shia Mehdi Army militia who was on security duty. He helped pull people out of the river after jumping in himself.

The death toll was put at more than 965 dead and hundreds more injured.

In March last year, 180 people died, many of them Shia pilgrims, when they were attacked by insurgents in Baghdad and in the holy city of Karbala. Fearing more attacks, the authorities blocked off roads across northern Baghdad on Tuesday as hundreds of thousands of Shia pilgrims converged on the capital. The country's Health Minister, Abdul-Mutalib Mohammed, told Iraqi television that there were "huge crowds on the bridge and the disaster happened when someone shouted that there is a suicide bomber on the bridge. This led to panic among the pilgrims," he said, "and they started pushing each other and there were many cases of suffocation."

The security commander for the Qadimiya district, in north Baghdad on the west bank of the Tigris, confirmed this analysis.

But pilgrims became frightened after mortar shells landed on the crowds in the morning, killing at least six people. A rumour started that a suicide bomber was among the crowd. Pilgrimages to the Baghdad shrine of Imam Moussa Qadim, the eighth-century Shia saint, were banned by Saddam Hussein. The revival of such pilgrimages has attracted enormous crowds over the past two years and an estimated one million pilgrims were on the road yesterday. In the aftermath of the disaster, tens of thousands of pilgrims continued their mournful procession and Shia women were seen keening over dead bodies in the streets.

The bridge where the disaster took place connects a Shia district with a part of Baghdad that supports the insurgency. The Sunni side has many former Hussein Baath party loyalists and Sunni fundamentalists. The disaster occurred just days after the new draft constitution was put before Iraq's parliament despite fierce objections by Sunni representatives. Prominent Sunnis want voters to reject the draft constitution when it is put to a referendum in October, and there have been angry protests against it among Sunnis across northern and central Iraq.

In the aftermath, Sunnis from the east side of the Tigris told how they had tried to save pilgrims who fell on to the concrete by taking the injured to a Sunni mosque and university. Others helped out with boats and, at a turn in the river, the fast-flowing current dumped bodies on the shoreline. Hospitals on both side were soon filled with bodies. The full scale of the disaster was clear at Baghdad's Medical City hospital, where heartbroken relatives and corpses filled the hallways, spilled onto the parking lot and the lawn. Arab television stations also showed bodies of men, women and children laid out on hospital floors, water streaming from their women's abayas and the black trousers and shirts of Shia pilgrims.

When hospitals could take no more victims, the bodies were laid side by side on the footpath and covered with white cloths and foil blankets. It was a scene of raw and pitiable emotion as women pulled back the covers in a desperate search for loved ones. Many survivors blamed the Shia security, rather than insurgents.Searches of men had caused bottlenecks to build up as pilgrims streamed toward the shrine. On the other side of the checkpoint another crowd built up as returning pilgrims tried to push their way home.

Shia death toll

* 31 August 2005: Worshippers stampede in Baghdad during commemoration of Shia saint's death, killing as many as 1,000 pilgrims.

* 10 March: Suicide bomber blows himself up at a Shia mosque during a funeral in Mosul, killing 47 and wounding more than 100.

* 28 February: Suicide car bomber targets mostly Shia police and National Guard recruits in Hillah, killing 125 and wounding more than 140.

* 18 February: Two suicide bombers attack two mosques, leaving 28 people dead, while an explosion near a Shia ceremony kills two others.

* 19 December 2004: Car bombs tear through Najaf funeral procession and Karbala's main bus station, killing 60 people and wounding more than 120.

* 26 August: A mortar barrage slams into a mosque near Najaf, killing 27 people and wounding 63.

* 2 March: Co-ordinated blasts from suicide bombers, mortars and planted explosives strike Shia shrines in Karbala and Baghdad, killing 181 and wounding 573.

* 29 August 2003: A car bomb explodes outside a mosque in Najaf, killing 85 people, including Shia leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim.

Source: AP

Martyrdom has always been a foundation of the Shia Muslim faith. But yesterday's tragedy gave it new meaning: possibly as many as 1,000 men, women and children were killed when they fell from a bridge over the Tigris river in Baghdad, apparently fearful that a suicide bomber had been let loose among them.

There was no bomber. But there was death on a massive scale as hundreds of Shia Muslims fell over the railings of the narrow bridge. Hundreds of children were among the dead.

Bodies drifted for hours downriver from the Qadimiya district of Baghdad. Soldiers who fired their rifles into the air compounded the carnage.

Several mortar rounds had earlier exploded on the road, leading many of the marchers - commemorating the death in 799 of Imam Moussa ibn Jaafar al-Qadim, one of Shiism's 12 principal saints - to believe they were under attack. At least a million Shia pilgrims were walking to the Qadimiya mosque when the crowd, trampled upon, crushed against barricades and hurled into the river, fell from the Aima bridge. Children could be seen drowning in the Tigris in what was the greatest loss of life in Iraq since the invasion of the country in 2003. Hundreds of sandals, foot packages and headdresses were heaped on the bridge after the deaths; hospitals were overwhelmed by the number of corpses brought to their mortuaries. At one point, Shia pilgrims could be seen hurling themselves from the bridge into the Tigris as they became crushed between panicking civilians.

Others fell from the end of the bridge and landed on the shore, their bodies crashing down amid the swings of a riverside children's park. "I saw an old woman, who was completely panicked and crying, throw herself from the bridge," Khalid Fadhil, a goldsmith who witnessed the stampede, told a reporter from The Washington Post. "I saw another man falling on the bricks of the shore who died immediately. I saw seven people were brought dead near the end of the bridge, smothered. Other people were running and shouting 'Allahu Akbar' [God is great]."

"Whoever was able to swim and knew how to swim survived. The people who didn't know died," said Sattar Jabbar, 22, a fighter in the Shia Mehdi Army militia who was on security duty. He helped pull people out of the river after jumping in himself.

The death toll was put at more than 965 dead and hundreds more injured.

In March last year, 180 people died, many of them Shia pilgrims, when they were attacked by insurgents in Baghdad and in the holy city of Karbala. Fearing more attacks, the authorities blocked off roads across northern Baghdad on Tuesday as hundreds of thousands of Shia pilgrims converged on the capital. The country's Health Minister, Abdul-Mutalib Mohammed, told Iraqi television that there were "huge crowds on the bridge and the disaster happened when someone shouted that there is a suicide bomber on the bridge. This led to panic among the pilgrims," he said, "and they started pushing each other and there were many cases of suffocation."

The security commander for the Qadimiya district, in north Baghdad on the west bank of the Tigris, confirmed this analysis.

But pilgrims became frightened after mortar shells landed on the crowds in the morning, killing at least six people. A rumour started that a suicide bomber was among the crowd. Pilgrimages to the Baghdad shrine of Imam Moussa Qadim, the eighth-century Shia saint, were banned by Saddam Hussein. The revival of such pilgrimages has attracted enormous crowds over the past two years and an estimated one million pilgrims were on the road yesterday. In the aftermath of the disaster, tens of thousands of pilgrims continued their mournful procession and Shia women were seen keening over dead bodies in the streets.

The bridge where the disaster took place connects a Shia district with a part of Baghdad that supports the insurgency. The Sunni side has many former Hussein Baath party loyalists and Sunni fundamentalists. The disaster occurred just days after the new draft constitution was put before Iraq's parliament despite fierce objections by Sunni representatives. Prominent Sunnis want voters to reject the draft constitution when it is put to a referendum in October, and there have been angry protests against it among Sunnis across northern and central Iraq.

In the aftermath, Sunnis from the east side of the Tigris told how they had tried to save pilgrims who fell on to the concrete by taking the injured to a Sunni mosque and university. Others helped out with boats and, at a turn in the river, the fast-flowing current dumped bodies on the shoreline. Hospitals on both side were soon filled with bodies. The full scale of the disaster was clear at Baghdad's Medical City hospital, where heartbroken relatives and corpses filled the hallways, spilled onto the parking lot and the lawn. Arab television stations also showed bodies of men, women and children laid out on hospital floors, water streaming from their women's abayas and the black trousers and shirts of Shia pilgrims.

When hospitals could take no more victims, the bodies were laid side by side on the footpath and covered with white cloths and foil blankets. It was a scene of raw and pitiable emotion as women pulled back the covers in a desperate search for loved ones. Many survivors blamed the Shia security, rather than insurgents.Searches of men had caused bottlenecks to build up as pilgrims streamed toward the shrine. On the other side of the checkpoint another crowd built up as returning pilgrims tried to push their way home.

Shia death toll

* 31 August 2005: Worshippers stampede in Baghdad during commemoration of Shia saint's death, killing as many as 1,000 pilgrims.

* 10 March: Suicide bomber blows himself up at a Shia mosque during a funeral in Mosul, killing 47 and wounding more than 100.

* 28 February: Suicide car bomber targets mostly Shia police and National Guard recruits in Hillah, killing 125 and wounding more than 140.

* 18 February: Two suicide bombers attack two mosques, leaving 28 people dead, while an explosion near a Shia ceremony kills two others.

* 19 December 2004: Car bombs tear through Najaf funeral procession and Karbala's main bus station, killing 60 people and wounding more than 120.

* 26 August: A mortar barrage slams into a mosque near Najaf, killing 27 people and wounding 63.

* 2 March: Co-ordinated blasts from suicide bombers, mortars and planted explosives strike Shia shrines in Karbala and Baghdad, killing 181 and wounding 573.

* 29 August 2003: A car bomb explodes outside a mosque in Najaf, killing 85 people, including Shia leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim.

Source: AP

Thousands feared dead as waters rise remorselessly in devastated city

In America, a natural disaster

Thousands feared dead as waters rise remorselessly in devastated city

By Rupert Cornwell and Andrew Gumbel

Published: 01 September 2005

With the bodies of the dead floating through the waterlogged streets and gangs of armed looters picking through the remains of a once-proud city, authorities in New Orleans reluctantly issued a total evacuation order last night, saying it might be weeks or even months before their sinking port city would again be fit for human habitation.

The shocked mayor of the city, Ray Nagin, said the numbers of dead could reach into the thousands: "We know there is a significant number of dead bodies in the water." Asked how many, he replied: "Minimum, hundreds. Most likely, thousands."

Despite a monumental rearguard effort by Army engineers and National Guardsmen to plug the levees breached during the furious onslaught of Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco said the waters were continuing to rise and there was no choice but to get the remaining inhabitants out.

"We've sent buses in. We will be loading them by boat, helicopter, anything that is necessary," Governor Blanco told television reporters. "It's becoming untenable. There's no power. It's getting more difficult to get food and water supplies in."

Eyewitness reports and television pictures from the city once known as the Big Easy suggested a near-apocalyptic scene of submerged streets and buildings, fetid waters fouled by debris, sewage and oil products, and gas from broken pipes bubbling to the surface and breaking out in periodic fires. There was no food, no electricity, no drinkable water. Panicked residents punched through windows, walls and ceilings to clamber on to roofs and await rescue under the punishing summer sun.

There were reports of elderly family members telling their loved ones they had no more strength and sinking into the depths, of one wife floating the body of her dead husband through the streets atop the detached door of their home, of screaming and weeping and fights breaking out in the struggle for survival.

With communication systems almost completely cut off - no telephones, no mobiles or e-mail, and only very limited radio-to-radio contact among rescue workers - it was impossible to hazard even a guess at the death toll. Officially, about 130 dead have been counted along the length of the Gulf Coast stretching into Mississippi and Alabama, but the final figure is likely to be much higher.

A massive rescue operation was being co-ordinated by 3,000 National Guard members, with back-up from every local, state and federal agency available. The Pentagon sent five ships with helicopters, hovercraft and relief supplies, as well as eight maritime rescue teams. Civilian agencies, meanwhile, prepared to tend to refugees expected to number well over one million, if not closer to twice that. The Department of Transportation alone supplied 400 water trucks, tarpaulins, mobile homes, generators, forklift trucks and emergency food and medical supplies.

About one million people are estimated to have fled the New Orleans area before Katrina struck, but that might have left as many as 200,000 behind - many of them on the poorer and more desperate end of the social spectrum.

"The poor people that are left in the city are the people who depended on those who fled but who now have nothing left themselves," said Noel Neuberger, a native Louisianan. "They are the nursemaids, the cooks, the day labourers. They are alone and the water is backing up on them."

One of the immediate consequences of the evacuation order will be the emptying of the Superdome, the sports stadium set up as a makeshift shelter during the storm and after. With conditions there described as desperate yesterday, officials prepared to move the entire refugee population by bus to Texas.

As chaos gripped the region, so too did mounting lawlessness. One of the first places to be looted was the firearm department of a Wal-Mart superstore in New Orleans. On Canal Street, in the heart of the city's tourist district, clothing and jewellery stores were picked clean. The city's Children's Hospital was besieged by gunmen apparently interested in seizing what they could from it. "There are gangs of armed men moving around the city," New Orleans' head of homeland security, Terry Ebbert, told reporters.

In Mississippi, casinos devastated by the hurricane were invaded by locals hoping to find cash inside the slot machines.

Police and National Guard troops made some efforts to intervene, prompting numerous exchanges of gunfire and an incident in which a policeman was shot in the head. Uniformed officials were, however, under instruction to focus their efforts on rescuing survivors, and in many cases chose not to react as the looters went about their business.

The most urgent task was to try to repair the broken levee walls that allowed the waters of Lake Pontchartrain, to the north of New Orleans, to pour into the city. Members of the Army Corps of Engineers are working around the clock to drop sandbags and concrete barriers into that breach, as well as another along the 17th Street Canal at the eastern end of the city.

New Orleans is not only built below sea level, exposing it to the constant risk of flooding from the Gulf of Mexico, but is also as much as 20ft below the surface of Lake Pontchartrain. The risk is that it will fill up like a bowl - not least because the high-powered pumps that usually keep Gulf and lake water out of the city failed as a result of the 120-mph winds that battered the city on Monday.

By last night, water levels in the lower parts of the city had reached 20ft. As the tide rose there were reports of alligators and cottonmouth snakes and other swamp-dwelling wildlife reclaiming the city.

Previously unaffected areas, particularly around the French Quarter, were also beginning to fill with water. Governor Blanco described the challenge facing rescue workers as "a logistical nightmare". "The National Guard has been dropping sandbags into it [the breach], but it's like dropping into a black hole."

Some of the concrete barrier-dropping work had to be suspended overnight because the helicopters were not equipped with the appropriate slings - one of a succession of problems that may yet prove to have contributed to the city's doom.

Quite what the long-term consequences of the flooding will be remains unclear. An unnamed Army Corps of Engineers officer told local radio yesterday that "if the bowl fills" it could be six months before all the water could be pumped back out again. Mayor Nagin gave a timeframe of 12-16 weeks but said rescue "was the main priority."

Exits from the city have been badly damaged, with one key interstate - I-10 - so devastated as to be unusable. Barriers and road blocks prevented anyone not involved in the rescue operation from penetrating a perimeter roughly eight miles from the city centre.

Local radio station, 870 WWL, acted as a forum for those left behind, issuing evacuation orders and urging people to take action against the rising waters before it was too late.

The scene was no less grim on Mississippi's coast, where some smaller settlements were swept away. The high-water marks were far higher even than during Hurricane Camille in 1969, the region's previous worst natural disaster.

"There were 10- and 20-block areas where there was nothing - not one home standing," Mississippi's governor, Haley Barbour, told reporters after taking a helicopter tour on Tuesday afternoon: "90 per cent of the structures are gone."

The consequences of the hurricane are likely to be felt far and wide, not least because the Gulf of Mexico accounts for one-quarter of total US oil output. Katrina shut down an estimated 95 per cent of crude production in the area, and 88 per cent natural gas output.

Samuel Bodman, the Energy Secretary, announced yesterday that the administration would release oil from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve to try to make up the shortfall. Still, energy specialists said US consumers could expect petrol prices - already at all-time highs of around $2.75 (£1.50) a gallon - to jump as high as $4 a gallon.

With the bodies of the dead floating through the waterlogged streets and gangs of armed looters picking through the remains of a once-proud city, authorities in New Orleans reluctantly issued a total evacuation order last night, saying it might be weeks or even months before their sinking port city would again be fit for human habitation.

The shocked mayor of the city, Ray Nagin, said the numbers of dead could reach into the thousands: "We know there is a significant number of dead bodies in the water." Asked how many, he replied: "Minimum, hundreds. Most likely, thousands."

Despite a monumental rearguard effort by Army engineers and National Guardsmen to plug the levees breached during the furious onslaught of Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco said the waters were continuing to rise and there was no choice but to get the remaining inhabitants out.

"We've sent buses in. We will be loading them by boat, helicopter, anything that is necessary," Governor Blanco told television reporters. "It's becoming untenable. There's no power. It's getting more difficult to get food and water supplies in."

Eyewitness reports and television pictures from the city once known as the Big Easy suggested a near-apocalyptic scene of submerged streets and buildings, fetid waters fouled by debris, sewage and oil products, and gas from broken pipes bubbling to the surface and breaking out in periodic fires. There was no food, no electricity, no drinkable water. Panicked residents punched through windows, walls and ceilings to clamber on to roofs and await rescue under the punishing summer sun.

There were reports of elderly family members telling their loved ones they had no more strength and sinking into the depths, of one wife floating the body of her dead husband through the streets atop the detached door of their home, of screaming and weeping and fights breaking out in the struggle for survival.

With communication systems almost completely cut off - no telephones, no mobiles or e-mail, and only very limited radio-to-radio contact among rescue workers - it was impossible to hazard even a guess at the death toll. Officially, about 130 dead have been counted along the length of the Gulf Coast stretching into Mississippi and Alabama, but the final figure is likely to be much higher.

A massive rescue operation was being co-ordinated by 3,000 National Guard members, with back-up from every local, state and federal agency available. The Pentagon sent five ships with helicopters, hovercraft and relief supplies, as well as eight maritime rescue teams. Civilian agencies, meanwhile, prepared to tend to refugees expected to number well over one million, if not closer to twice that. The Department of Transportation alone supplied 400 water trucks, tarpaulins, mobile homes, generators, forklift trucks and emergency food and medical supplies.

About one million people are estimated to have fled the New Orleans area before Katrina struck, but that might have left as many as 200,000 behind - many of them on the poorer and more desperate end of the social spectrum.

"The poor people that are left in the city are the people who depended on those who fled but who now have nothing left themselves," said Noel Neuberger, a native Louisianan. "They are the nursemaids, the cooks, the day labourers. They are alone and the water is backing up on them."

One of the immediate consequences of the evacuation order will be the emptying of the Superdome, the sports stadium set up as a makeshift shelter during the storm and after. With conditions there described as desperate yesterday, officials prepared to move the entire refugee population by bus to Texas.

As chaos gripped the region, so too did mounting lawlessness. One of the first places to be looted was the firearm department of a Wal-Mart superstore in New Orleans. On Canal Street, in the heart of the city's tourist district, clothing and jewellery stores were picked clean. The city's Children's Hospital was besieged by gunmen apparently interested in seizing what they could from it. "There are gangs of armed men moving around the city," New Orleans' head of homeland security, Terry Ebbert, told reporters.

In Mississippi, casinos devastated by the hurricane were invaded by locals hoping to find cash inside the slot machines.

Police and National Guard troops made some efforts to intervene, prompting numerous exchanges of gunfire and an incident in which a policeman was shot in the head. Uniformed officials were, however, under instruction to focus their efforts on rescuing survivors, and in many cases chose not to react as the looters went about their business.

The most urgent task was to try to repair the broken levee walls that allowed the waters of Lake Pontchartrain, to the north of New Orleans, to pour into the city. Members of the Army Corps of Engineers are working around the clock to drop sandbags and concrete barriers into that breach, as well as another along the 17th Street Canal at the eastern end of the city.

New Orleans is not only built below sea level, exposing it to the constant risk of flooding from the Gulf of Mexico, but is also as much as 20ft below the surface of Lake Pontchartrain. The risk is that it will fill up like a bowl - not least because the high-powered pumps that usually keep Gulf and lake water out of the city failed as a result of the 120-mph winds that battered the city on Monday.

By last night, water levels in the lower parts of the city had reached 20ft. As the tide rose there were reports of alligators and cottonmouth snakes and other swamp-dwelling wildlife reclaiming the city.

Previously unaffected areas, particularly around the French Quarter, were also beginning to fill with water. Governor Blanco described the challenge facing rescue workers as "a logistical nightmare". "The National Guard has been dropping sandbags into it [the breach], but it's like dropping into a black hole."

Some of the concrete barrier-dropping work had to be suspended overnight because the helicopters were not equipped with the appropriate slings - one of a succession of problems that may yet prove to have contributed to the city's doom.

Quite what the long-term consequences of the flooding will be remains unclear. An unnamed Army Corps of Engineers officer told local radio yesterday that "if the bowl fills" it could be six months before all the water could be pumped back out again. Mayor Nagin gave a timeframe of 12-16 weeks but said rescue "was the main priority."

Exits from the city have been badly damaged, with one key interstate - I-10 - so devastated as to be unusable. Barriers and road blocks prevented anyone not involved in the rescue operation from penetrating a perimeter roughly eight miles from the city centre.

Local radio station, 870 WWL, acted as a forum for those left behind, issuing evacuation orders and urging people to take action against the rising waters before it was too late.

The scene was no less grim on Mississippi's coast, where some smaller settlements were swept away. The high-water marks were far higher even than during Hurricane Camille in 1969, the region's previous worst natural disaster.

"There were 10- and 20-block areas where there was nothing - not one home standing," Mississippi's governor, Haley Barbour, told reporters after taking a helicopter tour on Tuesday afternoon: "90 per cent of the structures are gone."

The consequences of the hurricane are likely to be felt far and wide, not least because the Gulf of Mexico accounts for one-quarter of total US oil output. Katrina shut down an estimated 95 per cent of crude production in the area, and 88 per cent natural gas output.

Samuel Bodman, the Energy Secretary, announced yesterday that the administration would release oil from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve to try to make up the shortfall. Still, energy specialists said US consumers could expect petrol prices - already at all-time highs of around $2.75 (£1.50) a gallon - to jump as high as $4 a gallon.