11 Dead at Kite Festival

[Vade]

LAHORE, Pakistan -- (AP) At least 11 people died and more than 100 people were injured at an annual spring festival in eastern Pakistan celebrated with the flying of thousands of colorful kites, officials said Monday.

The deaths and injuries were caused by stray bullets, sharpened kite-strings, electrocution and people falling off rooftops on Sunday at the conclusion of the two-day Basant festival, said Ruqia Bano, spokeswoman for the emergency services in the city of Lahore.

The festival is regularly marred by casualties caused by sharp kite strings or celebratory gunshots fired into the air. Kite flyers often use strings made of wire or coated with ground glass to try to cross and cut a rival's string or damage the other kite, often after betting on the outcome.

Authorities temporarily lifted a ban on kite flying that was imposed following a string of deaths at the festival last year. Lahore Mayor Mian Amier Mahmood said the two-day permission to fly kites ended Sunday and that the ban has been re-imposed.

Police arrested more than 700 people for using sharpened kite strings or firing guns, and seized 282 illegally held weapons during this year's festival, said Aftab Cheema, a senior Lahore police officer.

Five of those who died on Sunday were hit by stray bullets, including a 6-year-school boy who was struck in the head near his home in the city's Mazang area, Bano said.

A 16-year-old girl and a school boy, 12, died after their throats were slashed by metal kite strings in separate incidents. Two people were electrocuted while they tried to recover kites tangled in overhead power cables, Bano said.

A 13-year-old boy fell to his death from the roof of his home as he tried to catch a stray kite, and a 35-year-old woman fell off the roof of her home trying to stop her son from running after a stray kite, Bano said.

Basant — which means yellow in Hindi — symbolizes the yellow mustard flowers that usually blossom in Pakistan at this time of the year.


http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/ ... 4554.shtml

[Falconblade]

The festival is regularly marred by casualties caused by sharp kite strings or celebratory gunshots fired into the air. Kite flyers often use strings made of wire or coated with ground glass to try to cross and cut a rival's string or damage the other kite, often after betting on the outcome.

You would think after the first few deaths people would try and make it more safe. By doing something like, oh I dont know...not fucking cover wire in glass?

[Kuya]

Oh boy i would so like to live there!

I like how they mention what Basant means at the end of the article, like as if to say: "O people died in the middle east, what else is new? BUT HEY LOOK AT WUT THIS WORDS MEINS!"

[Kiro]

STRAY BULLETS!

[Charla]

Um, lolpakistan?

Doesn't quite work, does it.

[kyle]

[/quote]

You would think after the first few deaths people would try and make it more safe. By doing something like, oh I dont know...not fucking cover wire in glass?



That is actually a common thing in Brazil (where i was born), well without all the deaths and shit, but pretty much everyone when they are kids go thru that "phase" there. I didn't cause i came to the US when i was very little, but my other brothers did it.

[Koyuki]

.....Can we label Pakistan the dumbest fucking country yet?

How the hell do you make some nice like flying Kites into a death tournament, Jesus Christ.

[Drinhkinn]

.....Can we label Pakistan the dumbest fucking country yet?

How the hell do you make some nice like flying Kites into a death tournament, Jesus Christ.

ALL HAIL PAKISTAN

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070226/...stan_girl_dc_1

[Carbon]

*inserts typical undereducated American respose*

"I say we just nuke the bastards!" HYUH HYUH HYUH *wiggles fat belly and eats a donut*

[Juvant]

this reminded me of Anchorman


"So, Brick, are you still having your celebrity golf tournament this year?"

"No, too many people died last year.."

[BRP]

Wow, this sounds awesome actually. Like in a totally, insensitive way.

[archibaldcrane]

*inserts typical undereducated American respose*

"I say we just nuke the bastards!" HYUH HYUH HYUH *wiggles fat belly and eats a donut*

I hope the educated American response is:

This shit is crazy. What the fuck. How do 11 people die during group kite flying.

Why would you coat a kite string with bits of broken glass?

If that's not the educated response, please let us in on it.

[GraveRobberX]

Alot of people in my country of Pakistan, are very uneducated

Seriously, to them Kite Battledome is just ecstasy

What would you expect of a country where boys are regulated to not speak, see, talk to the oppiste sex and not experience or have a release (you know what I mean)

They do stupid shit like this

My distant relatives have 2 Lions (Fucking Simba x 2 [older version]), as f'n pets. 1 of my cousins even got half his left thigh ripped off, and they are still there XD

Not to sound fucking heartless (maybe I do) but idiots that do these stupid things, and die, clean out the retarded gene pool

Feel bad for the kids tho, but who the fuck told them to go out wherever the kites where, stand and get ganked by glass covered wires

[Stilgar]

*inserts typical undereducated American respose*

"I say we just nuke the bastards!" HYUH HYUH HYUH *wiggles fat belly and eats a donut*

I was going to insert a typical non-American English-language response, but you beat me to it.

So here's my contribution: I slept with your boyfriend!

[Dezzimal]

and here I come expecting to read about armand.

[Keno]

This is why I can't be happier to live in the States. Granted living in Western Europe, Canada, or Japan wouldn't be bad either, but pretty much everywhere else in the world is shit.

[Kuya]

and here I come expecting to read about armand.

LOL

Armand.

He kites Fafnir.

[Carbon]

I only said what I said because that's the usual response I get from people that come into my store where I work. When the conversation leads to somewhere in the middle east, 50% of the time that is the response. I usually laugh -- not at their response, but at their stupidity.

"Yes, because nuclear warfare solves problems."

/sigh

EDIT: Oh, and I don't have a boyfriend at the moment.

[Kurstone]

They've been flying that kites with broken glass on strings for a really long time, back then when that place wasnt ravaged by the taliban and all that religious warfare it was a really nice place actually, many people from the US went there as tourists. The glass in the kite string is used to try to cut the other kite's line, the last kite standing (in this case flying) wins.

[Intense]

A 16-year-old girl and a school boy, 12, died after their throats were slashed by metal kite strings in separate incidents. Two people were electrocuted while they tried to recover kites tangled in overhead power cables, Bano said.

A 13-year-old boy fell to his death from the roof of his home as he tried to catch a stray kite, and a 35-year-old woman fell off the roof of her home trying to stop her son from running after a stray kite, Bano said.

What the hell is wrong with these people?