November 12, 2007
Three dead in Chongqing Carrefour stampede
A stampede in a Chongqing Carrefour hypermart has left 3 dead, 24 injured and another 7 seriously injured. The culprit? Cooking oil. As part of its 10th anniversary celebrations, a 5-litre bottle of cooking oil that was originally priced at RMB51.40 was to be sold at only RMB39.90. This news was enough to get Chongqingers to start queueing from as early as 4am in the morning. Sometime around 8.20am when the doors were finally open, a few unfortunate shoppers coming in through the east gate slipped and fell, while the rest of the overzealous crowd continued to rush on, causing the stampede. The Carrefour outlet is now closed for "reorganisation".
Photo from People's Daily via Yahoo News
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After living in Chongqing for the last two years, when I heard this news it made me really frustrated and angry. It really cemented the nagging suspicion in me that there's so many people here in China that a ton of Chinese have lost all concept of how to respect other human beings and it's just raw survival out there, each man for himself.
got in a huge argument with my bf about it, he being Chinese and living in Chongqing for the last 15 years, couldn't wrap his head around why I was so upset about the senselessness of this situation. He defended the stampeders by saying that this is what happens because Chinese people are so poor and they just want to save some money. He coupled that with, if they knew beforehand what would happen they would not have done it.
Neither of which arguments did anything to make me more sympathetic to the mob. In defense of Chongqing though, the crowds, pushing and shoving, and general animosity towards other human mass that gets in the way is much worse here in the Shanghai subways and buses. Shocked me, since I'd heard Shanghai city fold were more enlightened than the poor country-city migrants of Chongqing.
Yeah, senseless is the word.
Now Carrefour is the one facing legal liability. Sure, they should have had more security and staff on hand to handle it... but really, an 11.5 savings on cooking oil? Carrefour has discounts on hundreds of products everyday, so how could they assume such a stampede, even on an essential good like cooking oil?
It'd be nice to round up all the people pushing and stepping on others and have them face some sort of punishment. Sorry but the mobs are starting to get to me after 4 years in Shanghai. The 'me (and my clan first' culture is causing so much needless loss of life. i.e.: http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2007/200711/20071107/article_337240.htm