NEW DELHI: At least 87 people were crushed to death in a stampede at a Hindu religious gathering in northern India on Tuesday (Jul 2), according to Indian news outlet NDTV.
Many more are also injured, with fears that the toll could rise, said government medics.
“It’s very hard to say the exact figure, as bodies are still coming. We do not have the number of injured,” Uttar Pradesh state senior medical officer Ram Mohan Tiwari told AFP.
The stampede occurred in a village in Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras district, about 200km southeast of the national capital New Delhi, where authorities said a large crowd had gathered on an area of open ground for a sermon by a religious preacher.
Witnesses and local media reports said the stampede began as the audience left the sermon.
“When the sermon finished, everyone started running out,” Shakuntala, a woman who gave only one name, told the Press Trust of India news agency.
“People fell in a drain by the road. They started falling one on top of the other and got crushed to death.”
An unidentified witness told broadcaster India Today that there was a narrow exit at the venue.
“As we tried to exit towards a field, suddenly a commotion started, and we didn’t know what to do,” the witness said.
Local chief medical officer Umesh Kumar Tripathi told reporters that most of the dead were women.
“Many injured have also been admitted,” he said.
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath “expressed condolences” to relatives of those killed, his office said on social media platform X.
“He has directed the district administration officials to immediately take the injured to the hospital for their proper treatment and to speed up the relief work at the spot,” it said.
Adityanath’s office also said an investigation had been ordered into the cause of the incident.
Uttar Pradesh is India’s most populous state with more than 200 million people.
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.
At least 112 people were killed in 2016 after a huge explosion caused by a banned fireworks display at a temple marking the Hindu new year.
The blast ripped through concrete buildings and ignited a fire at a temple complex in Kerala state, where thousands had gathered.
Another 115 devotees were killed in 2013 in a stampede at a bridge near a temple in Madhya Pradesh.
Up to 400,000 people were gathered in the area and the stampede began after a rumour spread that the bridge was about to collapse.
About 224 pilgrims died and more than 400 others were injured in a 2008 stampede at a hilltop temple in the northern city of Jodhpur.
