35 Dead in New Year's Stampede in Shanghai

A New Year's tragedy in downtown Shanghai: A stampede of people celebrating the arrival of 2015 has left 35 people dead and more than 40 injured, reports the BBC. It happened about 11:35pm local time in the city's Chenyi Square, according to China's Xinhua news service. The AP places the stampede more specifically at a riverfront area known as the Bund, which gets jammed with people during major events. It remains unclear what triggered the crush.

"There were really too many people!" wrote one witness on the Chinese social media site Sina Weibo. "Squeezed inside, you could not budge, and could only move with the crowd." Shanghai police had earlier posted that "tourists" had "fallen over" at the site, and asked people to leave in orderly fashion. (More Shanghai stories.)