CAMBODIAN officials have moved to quell growing hysteria sparked by a rumour that a ghostly red number was appearing on mobile phones and killing people, local media and police said yesterday.

Officials have urged calm in the mobile-phone-crazy country, where rumours spread nationally like wildfire thanks to cheap calls and text messages, and have denied any red number exists.

Posts and Telecommunications Minister So Khun said the rumour was probably due to growing tension prior to scheduled national elections in July, the English-language Cambodia Daily reported.

"Anyone can make this up. In a moment we will hear that fish will grow legs and run away," the paper quoted the minister as saying.

Rumours such as this are not new to Cambodia, where people are deeply superstitious and believe in sorcerers and spirits but have nevertheless embraced texting technology as a national passion.

At the height of the SARS outbreak in 2003, a story circulated that people who did not eat a sugar palm dessert before midnight would die.

This sparked nationwide mass panic-buying of palm sugar, which then resulted in several market stalls being damaged.

In January of the same year, a false rumour that a Thai soap actress had claimed the national icon, Angkor Wat temple, was Thai led to an angry mob torching the Thai embassy and businesses.

Police warned yesterday that if the culprit for this latest text message-fuelled scare was found they would be prosecuted, but admitted Chinese whisper investigations of this nature were virtually impossible to trace.DPA