Several feared dead in stampede at Indian festival : NPR

PRAYAGRAJ, India — A number of individuals have been feared useless and plenty of extra injured in a stampede early Wednesday as tens of hundreds of Hindus rushed to take ritual baths in sacred rivers on the huge Maha Kumbh pageant in northern India.

A number of pilgrims have been injured, some significantly, within the stampede between 1 a.m. and a couple of a.m. as they tried to leap barricades erected for the motion of spiritual saints, Uttar Pradesh state’s prime elected official, Yogi Adityanath, mentioned in a televised assertion.

He made no point out of any deaths even eight hours after the crush of pilgrims on the web site. Some native information web sites mentioned 10 individuals had died.

Distressed households lined up outdoors a makeshift hospital inquiring about their lacking relations, rescuers have been serving to the injured and police tried to handle the crowds. Individuals’s belongings like garments, blankets and backpacks have been strewn across the scene of the stampede. It was not instantly clear what triggered the panic.

“The state of affairs is now below management, however there’s a huge crowd of pilgrims,” Adityanath mentioned, including that 90 million to 100 million pilgrims had congregated there.

“About 30 million individuals had taken the holy bathtub by 8 a.m. Wednesday,” he mentioned.

Wednesday was a sacred day through the six-week pageant, and authorities have been anticipating a report 100 million devotees to have interaction in a ritual bathtub on the confluence of the Ganges, the Yamuna and the legendary Saraswati rivers. Hindus imagine {that a} dip on the confluence will cleanse them of their previous sins and finish their strategy of reincarnation. The primary draw are hundreds of ash-smeared Hindu ascetics who make huge processions towards the confluence to wash.

Thousands and thousands continued to throng the positioning at the same time as police officers urged them over megaphones to keep away from the confluence. Adityanath urged individuals to as a substitute take baths at different riverbanks.

The Maha Kumbh pageant, held each 12 years, began on Jan. 13 and is the world’s largest non secular gathering. Authorities count on greater than 400 million individuals to throng the pilgrimage web site in whole.

Almost 150 million individuals have already attended, together with the likes of Protection Minister Rajnath Singh and Dwelling Minister Amit Shah and celebrities like Coldplay’s Chris Martin.

A sprawling tent metropolis was constructed on the riverbanks to accommodate guests. It has roads, electrical energy and water, 3,000 kitchens and 11 hospitals.

About 50,000 safety personnel are stationed within the metropolis to take care of legislation and order and handle crowds, and greater than 2,500 cameras monitor crowd motion and density so officers can attempt to stop such crushes.

Lethal stampedes are comparatively frequent round Indian non secular festivals, the place giant crowds collect in small areas. In 2013, at the very least 40 pilgrims who have been participating in the identical pageant have been killed in a stampede at a prepare station in Prayagraj.