Wow, aside from the Hurricane over 800 people died just from going over a bridge?! That's crazy, I wonder how many people were involved in total to get many killed... BAGHDAD (Reuters) - More than 800 Iraqi Shi'ites died in a stampede over a Baghdad bridge provoked by rumours of a suicide bomber on Wednesday, and an official said the death toll was expected to reach 1,000. The swarming crowds had been heading to a religious ceremony at the Kadhimiya mosque in the old district of north Baghdad when someone shouted there was a suicide bomber among them, a police source said. "Hundreds of people started running and some threw themselves off the bridge into the river," the source said. "Many elderly died immediately ... but dozens drowned, many bodies are still in the river and boats are working on picking them up." Most victims were women and children who "died by drowning or being trampled," an Interior Ministry official said. "At 10:30 p.m. the confirmed death toll is 852 and it is still rising.,"" said Dr Jaseb Latif Ali, a general manager at the Health Ministry, who said earlier the ministry expected the toll to top 1,000 people. It was by far the biggest loss of life in such a crowd since more than 1,400 pilgrims died at Mecca during the haj in 1990. In a country inured to mass bloodshed on its streets, there was profound shock and Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari declared three days of mourning. Constant coverage on national television included an appeal for relatives to claim a baby held up to the camera. He was found next to his mother's body. Interior Minister Bayan Jabor and two other top Shi'ite officials blamed Sunni insurgents for the stampede, saying one had spread a rumor there was a suicide bomber in the crowd. But Defense Minister Saadoun al-Dulaimi, a Sunni Arab himself, said the stampede was not related to sectarian tensions gripping the country since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. "What happened has nothing at all to do with any sectarian tension," he said on television. Some witnesses blamed poor organization for the death toll. ATTACK, THREAT Whatever sparked the rush for safety, the fear that a bomber might be on the loose was well grounded after previous attacks on Shi'ite religious events in the past two years. Three separate mortar and rocket attacks on the crowd heading to the mosque to commemorate the martyrdom of Musa al-Kadhim had killed seven people before the stampede. They were claimed by a little known Sunni Muslim group. Tensions are high among Iraq's rival religious and ethnic communities ahead of a referendum on a new constitution for the post- Saddam Hussein era. Television images showed people clambering down from the bridge to escape the surging crowd and piles of slippers left behind by the crush of people. Hysterical women knelt over corpses, wailing and praying. Ambulances rushed to the scene and people hoisted bodies onto stretchers while others lined the river banks and crowded the bridge. Scores of bodies were covered with whatever was around -- foil, clothes or plastic sheeting. A woman wept over the body of her dead child in al-Nu'man hospital. Dozens of bodies were strewn across the floor. The hospital was filled with the sounds of screaming and wailing as disconsolate men and women searched for loved ones. President Jalal Talabani said it was "a great tragedy which will leave a scar on our souls." The bridge stands on the spot where the body of Imam Musa al-Kadhim is said to have been dumped after being poisoned in 799 by agents of the caliph. Some 250,000 pilgrims had traveled from other parts of Iraq for the events, organizers said. The figure was lower than normal, they said, due to security fears. INSURGENCY UNABATED Despite the draft constitution, there has been no easing in an insurgency waged by Sunni Muslims, dominant under Saddam, and international guerrillas inspired by Osama bin Laden. The U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq in March 2003 and has been battling insurgents while Iraqis have tried to form a new post-Saddam constitution and government. The persistent fighting has helped to push down President George W. Bush's approval rating to a career low of 45 percent, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll. The U.S. war in Iraq now costs more per month than the average monthly cost of military operations in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s, according to a report issued on Wednesday. The report, entitled "The Iraq Quagmire" from the Institute for Policy Studies and Foreign Policy in Focus, both liberal and anti-war organizations, put the cost of operations in Iraq at $5.6 billion per month. This breaks down to almost $186 million a day. "By comparison, the average cost of U.S. operations in Vietnam over the eight-year war was $5.1 billion per month, adjusting for inflation," it said. (Additional reporting by Sebastian Alison, Fares Mehdawi, Lutfi Abu Oun, Aseel Kami) http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050831/wl_nm/iraq_dc_25;_ylt=AoOL7br4U9f7UCpGgNi_K9VX6GMA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl
Why should it be D&D material? Just cause of the location of the incident? I do'nt think it should be in the D&D. If you say that, then the Hurricane Katrina stuff should be in D&D. Both are tragedies..just one happened to be in another country.
Yeah, true. I doubt this gets more coverage in the news. Just imagine if there is at least ONE "American" in there... I bet you it gets coverage...
Bush's illegal war is what is known as a "proximate" cause in the law. They stampeded because they thought there was a suicide bomber, which they now have thanks to Bush.
It only becomes D&D when idiotic political drivel gets shoved into it... my guess is this will be D&D soon. That being said, stuff like this is so sad. I can't imagine a 1000 people dying in stampedes because somebody shouts "fire". It shouldn't happen, but it's the world we live in.
Unfortunatnly the first reply to this article mentioned the D&D. That right there is going to spark some debate because honestly it doesn't belong in there it belong right here with the Hurricane stuff. Just the fact that it was mentioned like that made me bothered that just because it's in another country and in a Muslim country it should be relegated to the D&D. Now that statement was made i have no doubt that it's going to spiral into a D&D discussion and miss the point. This was a tragedy no matter how you look at it. My country was at war with Iraq for 8 years that doesn't make me not care about a tragedy caused by people trying to run for their lives from crap like that from a suicide bomber. I don't care if it was in the US, IRaq, Timbuktu, or Mars..something like that is just hard to believe and my prayers go out to them just as they have been for the people of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. I hope that no one derails this thread with useless political clammer, when there are more important issues like the lives that are lost.
Why don't you come up with one logical reason that this thread belongs in the D&D while the Hurricane thread belongs here in the Hangout? What kind of political implications does losing 800 innocent lives in another country because of some stupid actions? No matter how it happened it's a damn tragedie and belongs right here...only people with some narrow views and political opinions to this matter are going to derail it and move it to the D&D.
some of the comments in the hurricane thread in D&D are pretty uselessly politically and borderline racist. this has been a tragic couple of days. that's the bottom line.
Before even reading this thread, I was guessing good ol Glynch would fire the first salvo. I should have put some money on it.
It is simple why this is a political issue, not just merely isn't that an unfortunate "accident". When you start wars, bad things happen. Things always get chaotic and people are killed in hundreds of ways that they aren't before the war starts. This is why wars should not be started except when unavoidable. This has been known for centuries and is the basis of the just war theory that Bush and his supporters failed to honor.
Wow I didn't realize that this was going to be debated over whether it was debatable or not.. I just read the mere fact that so many lives were lost because of panic and chaos. Now if you're debating whether that this is debatable then obviously you have a point to make...I have no point to make, just wanted to inform about the tragedy..
Glynch's initial post and what will follow. It was pretty obvious where it was headed right when I saw the title.
