Deaths in China during New Year’s celebration
A stampede killed at least 36 people during New Year’s Eve celebrations in Shanghai, authorities said, possibly caused by people rushing to pick up fake money thrown from a building overlooking the city’s famous Bund waterfront district.
The government in China’s gleaming business capital said large crowds started to stampede in Chen Yi Square on the Bund just before midnight in the cosmopolitan city’s worst disaster since 58 died in an apartment building fire in 2010.
The trigger for the stampede has still to be confirmed, but state media and witnesses said it was at least partly caused when people tried picking up coupons that looked like bank notes.
Denisha Sahadevan