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.(reuters)

(foto: afp/ahmad al-rubaye)