(CNN) -- Last week's deadly stampede during an annual festival won't result in criminal punishments, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Monday in a speech broadcast on state television.
"No one will receive punishment for this incident," he said at the opening of a new government building in Phnom Penh. "We have to learn a lesson from this to solve such problems in the future".
Government investigators said last Wednesday that a suspension bridge swayed as thousands of people attempted to cross it during the annual water festival. The swaying apparently led to fears it would collapse, triggering the stampede.
Police fired water cannons to get people to continue moving across the footbridge, which leads to an island in the center of a river. "That just caused complete and utter panic," Steve Finch of the Phnom Penh Post told CNN after the November 22 incident.
The government said 347 people were killed and hundreds of others were injured in the incident. CNN
