A stampede at the world’s largest religious gathering in India killed at least 15 people with many more injured, a doctor at the Kumbh Mela festival told AFP on Jan 29.
Deadly crowd crushes are a notorious feature of Indian religious festivals and the Kumbh Mela, with its unfathomable throngs of devotees, already had a grim track record before the latest incident in the early hours of the morning.
The six-week festival is the single biggest milestone on the Hindu religious calendar, and millions of people had been expected to participate in a sacred day of ritual bathing on Jan 29.
“At least 15 people have died for now. Others are being treated,” said the doctor at the festival site in Prayagraj, speaking on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to talk to media.
Rescue teams were seen working with pilgrims to carry victims away from the site of the accident over ground strewn with clothes, shoes and other discarded belongings.
Police officers moved through the area carrying stretchers bearing the bodies of victims draped with thick blankets.
Dozens of relatives were anxiously waiting for news outside a large tent serving as a purpose-built hospital for the festival, around 1km from the accident.
Jan 29 marks one of the holiest days in the festival, when saffron-clad holy men were due to lead millions into a procession of sin-cleansing ritual bathing at the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers.
But instead, officials were strolling the festival site with loudhailers, urging pilgrims to keep away from the waterways.
More than 400 people died after being trampled or drowned at the Kumbh Mela on a single day of the festival in 1954, one of the largest tolls in a crowd-related disaster globally.
Another 36 people were crushed to death in 2013, the last time the festival was staged in the northern city of Prayagraj. THE STRAITS TIMES
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