PHNOM PENH - FIVE paddlers perished in Friday's race, and another five came dangerously close as well, according to the Cambodian official overseeing rescue efforts.
Twelve of the 22 were picked up by boats in the vicinity immediately after the dragon boat capsized close to shore on Friday, National Committee for Disaster Management first vice-president Dr Nhim Vanda told The Straits Times.
Ten paddlers were sucked into the swirling 10m-deep waters under the concrete pontoon, which is bigger than a basketball court.
Five of them re-emerged at the far end of the pontoon.
'But the other five, because of the strong water current, we could not find them,' he said.
Over the next 40 hours, about 300 rescue workers, including divers from the Cambodian Navy, military troops and maritime police patrol officers, were deployed.
They were joined by an expert eight-man team from Singapore's Naval Diving Unit as well, using sonar equipment to scan the stretches of the riverbed. Cambodian navy personnel also used a hook-like device to dredge the waters.
The help of indigenous people - the ethnic Cham minority and Vietnamese river people - was also employed.
'We offered a reward to them so as to use their indigenous know-ledge to supplement our rescue efforts,' said Dr Vanda.
This year for the first time, competitors from all 10 Asean nations except Myanmar competed in the event after a concerted push by the Cambodian government to make the event international.
Government spokesman Khieu Kanharith told The Straits Times a failure by race organisers to communicate the river's dangers and inadequate preparations by foreign teams could have contributed to the tragedy.
Mr Kanharith said the course on which the annual dragon boat races are held is a particularly treacherous stretch of the Tonle Sap River, and specific preparation is necessary before navigating it - something it appears the Singapore team was warned of.
'The Filipino all-woman team arrived three days before the races and so understood the river conditions. The Singapore team arrived just the day before and therefore could not have understood the river,' he said.
He said that, although the Singaporeans were supremely professional, well-trained and fit, they were unused to the conditions, when the Tonle Sap has just changed its direction and the floodwaters of its parent Tonle Sap Lake are roaring back downriver towards the Mekong Delta.
'They were paddling the boat back and relaxing, but unfortunately there was a freak current,' he said.
An inquiry has been promised, but some were less convinced that anything about the centuries-old festival would change, inquiry or not, and seemed sure of only one thing - that Asean teams would be invited to return next year regardless.
Safety measures taken for granted in other countries were not something Third World and staunchly traditional Cambodia could enforce in a hurry, they said.
Said Secretary of State for the Ministry of Cults and Religions Min Khin: 'Competitors will refuse life jackets. They make it hard to swim, and it's our tradition to wear shorts and light shirts so we can paddle strongly.'
But new safety measures have been proposed.
'In future we will make it a condition that competitors can show they are qualified swimmers - in rivers, lakes and the sea,' said Mr Kanharith.
'And they must also be able to understand the coordinating official's orders.'
