Dozens killed in India’s festival stampede

Dozens of people were killed in a pre-dawn stampede at the Maha Kumbh Mela in northern India on Wednesday, as tens of millions of Hindus gathered to take a dip in the sacred river waters on the most auspicious day of a six-week festival.

Reuters reported that 39 bodies were counted in the morgue of the local hospital, where bodies continued to arrive 12 hours after the crowds surged toward the confluence of rivers, a site considered especially sacred for immersion.

According to two police sources, all 39 individuals lost their lives in the crush at the world’s largest gathering of people. Three police sources confirmed a death toll of nearly 40.

“More bodies are coming in. We have nearly 40 bodies here. We are transferring them out as well and handing over to families one by one,” one of the sources said at the Moti Lal Nehru Medical College hospital.

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Senior police officer Vaibhav Krishna told reporters that 90 people were taken to the hospital after the stampede, of whom 30 had died.

Distraught relatives queued up to identify those killed by the stampede, which triggered calls for authorities and politicians to be held accountable.

Some witnesses spoke of a huge push that caused devotees to fall on each other, while others said closure of routes to the water brought the dense crowd to a standstill and caused people to collapse due to suffocation.

“There was commotion, everybody started pushing, pulling, climbing over one another. My mother collapsed…then my sister-in-law. People ran over them,” said Jagwanti Devi, 40, as she sat in an ambulance with the bodies of her relatives.

READ MORE FROM: NIGERIAN TRIBUNE