NEW YEAR STAMPEDE KILLS 35 IN SHANGHAI

This photo taken before midnight on December 31, 2014 shows revellers (bottom) trapped on a stairway in a stampede as people gather on Shanghai's historic riverfront to welcome in the new year. The stampede by New Year's revellers in Shanghai's historic riverfront area killed 35 people and injured dozens more, the city government said on January 1

A New Year's stampede on Shanghai's historic waterfront killed at least 35 revellers, most of them women, and injured dozens more, despite efforts by authorities in China's commercial hub to mitigate the risk of overcrowding.

While some witnesses said revellers had scrambled for fake money thrown from a building, others downplayed the likelihood that this was to blame.

The disaster happened shortly before midnight late on Wednesday as people packed the Bund area to usher in 2015, according to a city government statement.

A photo on the Shanghai Daily newspaper's website showed what appeared to be dead and injured people lying on the ground with crowds still in the background. State TV footage showed abandoned footwear littering the area and a line of police vans with flashing lights.

City officials said 35 people had been killed and 48 injured, 14 of them seriously.

The official news agency Xinhua said 25 women and 10 men were among the dead, with the ages of the first 10 identified fatalities ranging from 16 to 36.

American Andrew Shainker, an English teacher, watched from a rooftop terrace across the road as the disaster unfolded on a wide stairway leading up to a riverfront promenade.

"I witnessed lifeless bodies being carried out of a crowd one by one and dumped on the street," he posted on Chinese messaging network Wechat.

"You could hear screams of panic. What I thought was the best view on the Bund ended up being a front row seat to an international tragedy."

Most of the victims appeared to be Chinese, he said.

"I felt I was suffocating," wrote one poster on Weibo, a Chinese equivalent of Twitter. "Some people with us will not come back."

The Bund, renowned for its pre-Chinese revolution architecture, is the former financial district of the country's commercial hub and now a popular tourist destination, packed with high-end restaurants and expensive boutiques.

By dawn there was little evidence of the disaster beyond a lone police van and rubbish discarded by celebrants. That is typical in China for major incident scenes, which authorities are quick to clear.

Mourners laid flowers nearby.

More than 20 police vehicles were outside the Shanghai Number One People's Hospital, one of at least three facilities where the injured were taken, and officers prevented people from entering.

The mother of an injured 12-year-old boy sat in a chair, crying, surrounded by relatives.

"We don't know what is happening but we can't get in to see him," said her older brother, declining to be named.

Fake currency

Shainker was in Bund 18, a shopping and entertainment complex where witnesses said dollar-like notes had been thrown from a window, prompting a scramble to retrieve it.

"We saw people scattering money from Bund 18," wrote one poster, but others pointed out a wide street separates the building from the staircase where the main stampede occurred.

Zhou Miaochen, who was standing near the steps, told AFP it was "impossible" for the notes to reach the crowd there.

"There was a large flow of visitors, some trying to reach the viewing deck and some trying to get down," he said. "People started crashing into each other."

Fake currency has long been burned at Chinese funerals to ensure the dead have money in the afterlife, and nowadays is also frequently used as an advertising medium.

Pictures posted online showed the slips of paper were a similar size, shape and colour as US currency, but emblazoned with the logo of M18, a nightclub in the building, and stamped "New Year 2015".

Chinese President Xi Jinping demanded an immediate investigation into the cause, Xinhua reported. State broadcaster China Central Television’s main news channel treated Xi's earlier New Year address as the day's top news item, replaying the speech several times.

Fears of overcrowding

Shanghainese have traditionally flocked to the Bund to celebrate the New Year, and more recently the district government overseeing the area has put on official celebrations.

This year's "countdown" reportedly included a light show, singing performances and finally fireworks.

A new location was chosen specifically due to concerns about overcrowding after nearly 300,000 people turned out to see in 2014, the Shanghai Daily newspaper said.

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.

In 1993, 20 people were killed as New Year's revellers poured into a narrow street in Hong Kong, at the time still under British rule.

The Bund is opposite the Huangpu river from Pudong, the concentration of towering skyscrapers that epitomises Shanghai's role at the heart of China's economic boom.

But despite its position among China's most advanced cities it has not been immune from accidents and urban management problems, including a fire at a high-rise apartment building in 2010 that left 58 people dead.

CREDIT SOURCE: AGENCIES