Week 3

New Year's Eve stampede kills 36 in Shanghai as huge crowds jostle for waterfront view

Thirty-six people have been killed in a New Year's Eve stampede in Shanghai, with eyewitnesses saying it was a case of too many people pushing for a glimpse of the riverfront.

Up to 50 others were reportedly injured, including many students, and the government said they were being treated in three local hospitals including Shanghai General Hospital.

Survivors have told stories of panic as too many people tried to get a view of the river, not realising that a planned light show had been moved to another location.

"People standing above us pushed downwards. We couldn't get up to the viewing platform. A line of people who had stood above us fell straight down onto us so we were pushed down," an unnamed, injured man told reporters from his hospital bed.

Reports that part of the crush might have been caused by people surging to grab fake money being thrown into the street from a bar above have been discounted by some observers.

A witness, who gave his family name as Wei, said there had also been a problem away from the area where the fake bills were thrown, with people trying to get onto a raised platform overlooking the river.

Chinese president Xi Jinping told the Shanghai government to get to the bottom of the incident as soon as possible, and ordered governments across the country to ensure a similar disaster could not happen again, state television said.

The Shanghai government said large crowds started to stampede in Chen Yi Square on the Bund just before midnight.

New year's celebrations on the Bund in Shanghai had in fact been scaled back following years of swelling crowds.

The Shanghai government said on its Weibo account that an inquiry had begun.

The official Xinhua news service reported the stampede began at 11:35pm (local time).

Photos posted on social media showed people receiving first aid on the road and large numbers of police cordoning off the area.

In some photographs, rescue workers were seen trying to resuscitate victims lying on the pavement while ambulances waited nearby.

A photo on the website of the Shanghai Daily newspaper showed what appeared to be dead and injured people lying on the ground with crowds still in the background.

Another photo on social media appeared to show people being crushed to death as a crowd pressed against a barrier.

Images from earlier in the night showed densely packed crowds of revellers along the Bund, a famed tourist area that runs along the bank of the Huangpu River.
Relatives frustrated by lack of information

Dozens of distraught relatives gathered in the hospital lobby waiting for news, with some expressing frustration over a lack of information.

"Many relatives have asked to go inside and asked the hospital to give us a list of the injured, including the conscious and unconscious ones who are being treated in there, but nobody got back to us," said a relative who gave her family name as Fan.

The official Xinhua news agency said many of the injured were students, and some were young children.

The director of the Shanghai No.1 People's Hospital, Wang Xingpeng, said some of the injuries were catastophic.

"Many of the injured suffered from severe crush injuries, including crush injuries to the chest, brain and abdomen," he said.

The Bund is the former financial district of China's commercial hub and now a popular tourist destination, packed with high-end restaurants and expensive boutiques.

The site for Wednesday night's celebrations, including the countdown to midnight, was moved to a new location specifically out of concerns about over-crowding, after nearly 300,000 people turned out last year, the Shanghai Daily newspaper said on its website.

Most large gatherings in China are carefully controlled by authorities but the country has seen other incidents in which overcrowding has caused panic and deaths.

Last year, 14 people - some of them children - were killed and 10 injured in a stampede that broke out as food was being distributed at a mosque in China's Ningxia region.

Also last year, six students were killed in a stampede at a primary school in Kunming city in the south-west after the accidental blocking of a stairway corridor.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-01/35-dead-in-shanghai-new-year-stampede/5995536

Structure of the Lead

      Who- not clearly pointed out
        When- 1 Jan 2015 
        what- It happened stampede in Chinese New Year.
        Why- Many people tried to get a view of the river.

        Where- in Shangha
         How- It killed 36 people.

Keywords

1 resuscitate (V)使復甦

2 distraught (ADJ)心煩意亂的

 

Week 2

Pakistan Taliban: Peshawar school attack leaves 141 dead

Militants from the Pakistani Taliban have attacked an army-run school in Peshawar, killing 141 people, 132 of them children, the military say.

Officials say the attack in the north-western city is over, with all the attackers killed. Seven militants took part in all, according to the army.

Scores of survivors are being treated in hospitals as frantic parents search for news of their children.

The attack - the Taliban's deadliest in Pakistan - has been widely condemned.

Describing the attack from his hospital bed to the BBC's Shaimaa Khalil, Shahrukh Khan, 17, said a gunman had entered his classroom and opened fire at random.

As he hid under a desk, he saw his friends being shot, one in the head and one in the chest. Two teachers were also killed.

A Taliban spokesman told BBC Urdu that the school, which is run by the army, had been targeted in response to military operations.

Hundreds of Taliban fighters are thought to have died in a recent offensive in North Waziristan and the nearby Khyber area.

US President Barack Obama said terrorists had "once again shown their depravity" while UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said it was "an act of horror and rank cowardice".

Analysis: Aamer Ahmed Khan, BBC News

This brutal attack may well be a watershed for a country long accused by the world of treating terrorists as strategic assets.

Pakistan's policy-makers struggling to come to grips with various shades of militants have often cited a "lack of consensus" and "large pockets of sympathy" for religious militants as a major stumbling-block.

That is probably why, when army chief Gen Raheel Sharif launched what he called an indiscriminate operation earlier in the year against militant groups in Pakistan's lawless tribal belt, the political response was lukewarm at best.

We will get them, was his message, be they Pakistani Taliban, Punjabi Taliban, al-Qaeda and affiliates, or most importantly, the dreaded Haqqani network. But the country's political leadership chose to remain largely silent. This is very likely to change now.

Late on Tuesday, military spokesman Asim Bajwa told reporters in Peshawar that 132 children and nine members of staff had been killed.

All seven of the attackers wore suicide bomb vests, he said. Scores of people were also injured.

It appears the militants scaled walls to get into the school and set off a bomb at the start of the assault.

Children who escaped say the militants then went from one classroom to another, shooting indiscriminately.

One boy told reporters he had been with a group of 10 friends who tried to run away and hide. He was the only one to survive.

Others described seeing pupils lying dead in the corridors. One local woman said her friend's daughter had escaped because her clothing was covered in blood from those around her and she had lain pretending to be dead.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-30491435

Structure of the Lead

      Who- Militants from the Pakistani Taliban and the students
        When- 16 December 2014 
        What- It attacked people who stay in the school randomly. 
        Why-   not given

        Where- Peshawar school
         How- It caused 141 people died in this attack.

Keywords

1.          depravity: (N)墮落

2.          watershed: (N)轉折點

3.          lukewarm:(ADJ)冷淡的

4.          affiliates: (N)成員組織