Thirty-six people have been killed in a New Year's Eve stampede in Shanghai, with eyewitnesses saying it was a case of too many people pushing for a glimpse of the riverfront.

Up to 50 others were reportedly injured, including many students, and the government said they were being treated in three local hospitals including Shanghai General Hospital.

Survivors have told stories of panic as too many people tried to get a view of the river, not realising that a planned light show had been moved to another location.

"People standing above us pushed downwards. We couldn't get up to the viewing platform. A line of people who had stood above us fell straight down onto us so we were pushed down," an unnamed, injured man told reporters from his hospital bed.

Reports that part of the crush might have been caused by people surging to grab fake money being thrown into the street from a bar above have been discounted by some observers.

A witness, who gave his family name as Wei, said there had also been a problem away from the area where the fake bills were thrown, with people trying to get onto a raised platform overlooking the river.

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Chinese president Xi Jinping told the Shanghai government to get to the bottom of the incident as soon as possible, and ordered governments across the country to ensure a similar disaster could not happen again, state television said.

The Shanghai government said large crowds started to stampede in Chen Yi Square on the Bund just before midnight.

New year's celebrations on the Bund in Shanghai had in fact been scaled back following years of swelling crowds.

The Shanghai government said on its Weibo account that an inquiry had begun.

The official Xinhua news service reported the stampede began at 11:35pm (local time).

Photos posted on social media showed people receiving first aid on the road and large numbers of police cordoning off the area.

People watch a light show on Shanghai's waterfront area before the stampede. ( Reuters )

In some photographs, rescue workers were seen trying to resuscitate victims lying on the pavement while ambulances waited nearby.

A photo on the website of the Shanghai Daily newspaper showed what appeared to be dead and injured people lying on the ground with crowds still in the background.

Another photo on social media appeared to show people being crushed to death as a crowd pressed against a barrier.

Images from earlier in the night showed densely packed crowds of revellers along the Bund, a famed tourist area that runs along the bank of the Huangpu River.

Relatives frustrated by lack of information

Relatives of a victim of the stampede wait outside a Shanghai hospital. ( Reuters: Aly Song )

Dozens of distraught relatives gathered in the hospital lobby waiting for news, with some expressing frustration over a lack of information.

"Many relatives have asked to go inside and asked the hospital to give us a list of the injured, including the conscious and unconscious ones who are being treated in there, but nobody got back to us," said a relative who gave her family name as Fan.

The official Xinhua news agency said many of the injured were students, and some were young children.

The director of the Shanghai No.1 People's Hospital, Wang Xingpeng, said some of the injuries were catastophic.

"Many of the injured suffered from severe crush injuries, including crush injuries to the chest, brain and abdomen," he said.

The Bund is the former financial district of China's commercial hub and now a popular tourist destination, packed with high-end restaurants and expensive boutiques.

The site for Wednesday night's celebrations, including the countdown to midnight, was moved to a new location specifically out of concerns about over-crowding, after nearly 300,000 people turned out last year, the Shanghai Daily newspaper said on its website.

Emergency services at the scene of a stampede in Shanghai ( weibo.com )

Most large gatherings in China are carefully controlled by authorities but the country has seen other incidents in which overcrowding has caused panic and deaths.

Last year, 14 people - some of them children - were killed and 10 injured in a stampede that broke out as food was being distributed at a mosque in China's Ningxia region.

Also last year, six students were killed in a stampede at a primary school in Kunming city in the south-west after the accidental blocking of a stairway corridor.

Map showing the location of the Bund, Shanghai

ABC/wires