The death toll in the stampede that broke out at a religious gathering in a village in the district of Hathrasin the State ofUttar Pradeshin northern India, but the death toll continues to rise.
According to an initial reconstruction, it seems that the stampede broke out at the end of a meeting with the spiritual leader named Bhole BabaProbably due to the heat in the place dedicated to the ceremony and the overcrowding (it is estimated that there were more than 15 thousand faithful present while the spaces were set up to accommodate a third of them) many tried to leave as soon as the event was over, thus unleashing chaos.
A survivor, Jyoti, told local media: “Everyone was in a hurry to leave… There was no way out and people were falling on top of each other.” “People fell into a gutter on the road,” a woman named Shakuntala told the Press Trust of India news agency. “They started falling on top of each other and were crushed to death.”
The Indian Prime Minister, Narendra-Modioffered condolences to the families of the dead and said the federal government was working with state authorities to provide care to the injured. Uttar Pradesh Governor Yogi Adityanath called the incident “extremely sad and heartbreaking” in a post on X, adding that authorities were investigating the cause.
In 2013, a stampede broke out among pilgrims visiting a temple for a popular Hindu festival in the central state of Madhya PradeshPilgrims trampled each other as they fled fearing a bridge might collapse, with 115 deaths reported. Two years earlier, in 2011, more than 100 Hindu devotees were crushed to death during a religious festival in the southern state of Kerala.
