India’s deadliest stampede in over a decade left 121 people dead at a vastly overcrowded Hindu religious gathering.
A police report said more than 250,000 people attended the event in northern India’s Uttar Pradesh state, more than triple the 80,000 organisers had permission for.
People fell on top of each other as they tumbled down a slope into a water-logged ditch, witnesses said.
“Everyone –- the entire crowd, including women and children –- all left from the event site at once,” said police officer Sheela Maurya, 50, who had been on duty Tuesday as a popular Hindu preacher delivered a sermon.
“There wasn’t enough space, and everyone just fell on top of each other.”
Almost all of the dead were women, along with seven children and one man.
Officials suggested the stampede was triggered when worshippers tried to gather soil from the footsteps of the preacher, while others blamed a dust storm for sparking panic.
Some fainted from the force of the crowd, before falling and being trampled upon, unable to move.
The Uttar Pradesh’s state disaster management centre, the Office of the Relief Commissioner, released a list of the dead on Wednesday morning.
It said 121 people had been killed.
Deadly incidents are common at places of worship during major religious festivals in India, the biggest of which prompt millions of devotees to make pilgrimages to holy sites.
Chaitra V., divisional commissioner of Aligarh city in Uttar Pradesh state, initially said panic began when “attendees were exiting the venue when a dust storm blinded their vision, leading to a melee”.
But Uttar Pradesh Chief Secretary Manoj Kumar Singh told reporters after visiting the site that worshippers had scrambled to get close to the preacher.
“I am told that people rushed to touch his feet and tried to collect soil, and a stampede took place,” Singh said, according to the Indian Express daily.
“Many people fell in a nearby drain”.
At dawn on Wednesday, four unidentified bodies lay on the floor of a makeshift morgue at the hospital in the nearby town of Hathras.
In the hospital’s emergency ward, Sandeep Kumar, 29, sat next to his injured sister, Shikha Kumar, 22.
“After the event ended, everyone wanted to exit quickly, and that is what led to the stampede,” Sandeep said.
“She saw people fainting, getting crushed.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced compensation of $2,400 to the next of kin of those who died and $600 to those injured in the “tragic incident”.
President Droupadi Murmu said the deaths were “heart-rending” and offered her “deepest condolences”.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who is also a Hindu monk, expressed his condolences to the relatives of those killed and ordered an investigation into the deaths, his office said.
Religious gatherings in India have a grim track record of deadly incidents caused by poor crowd management and safety lapses.
In 2008, 224 pilgrims were killed and more than 400 were injured in a stampede at a hilltop temple in the northern city of Jodhpur.
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