Stampede! A travesty, again and again

I don't know why this catches my attention, but I've blogged about human stampedes twice in the past (on my old tribe.net blog here and here), and unfortunately, some new episodes have occured with atrocious numbers of deaths.

2008: 35 die in Indian temple stampede (includes references to other recent events)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080930/ts_nm/us_india_stampede

2007: 7 die in Chinese superstore stampede

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/11/10/supermarket.stampede.ap/index.html

2005: 1,000 die in Baghdad bridge stampede

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_bridge_stampede

2005: 5 hurt in London IKEA stampede

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/02/10/ikea.stampede

2004:  3 die in Saudi shop stampede

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3618190.stm

Whenever I'm in the middle of a huge crowd, I'm always wary of which way to escape in case of stampede.