HANOI (AFP) — Four people died and more than 400 were injured on the roads amid frenzied celebrations over Vietnam's victory in a regional football competition, state media reports said.
The streets of Vietnam's cities filled with tens of thousands of cheering revellers late Sunday, many waving national flags as they rode motorcycles and jammed into cars and trucks, after Vietnam won the AFF Suzuki Cup.
The night-long party was mostly a raucous but good natured demonstration of national pride in the football-crazed nation but it also led to scores of traffic accidents, reported the Tien Phong and Thanh Nien newspapers.
Motorcycle drag-racers hit and killed one person in the southern coastal resort of Ba Ria, while three men died in two traffic accidents in the business hub of Ho Chi Minh City, said the Thanh Nien daily.
Hospitals in the capital Hanoi reported at least 100 emergency cases, including three skull fractures, while more than 300 people were treated in Ho Chi Minh City and other cities nationwide, media reports said.
"Many of the patients suffered brain injuries, bone fractures and abrasions. Several of them had drunk beer or spirits," said the Tien Phong daily.
Hanoi police detained 14 people, aged between 16 and 20, for speed-racing after midnight and fined 100 more for riding without helmets, said the Vietnam News Agency, adding that one police officer was injured by fireworks.
Authorities in Vietnam, a nation of 86 million, reported 12,800 traffic deaths last year and in figures released Wednesday said that 10,400 people died in accidents on Vietnam's roads in the first 11 months of 2008.
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