At least 18 people died during a stampede at a railway station in the New Delhi of India on Saturday when the crowds grew to catch trains to the Kumbh Mela, officials and reports said.
The Kumbh Mela, the world’s largest religious meeting, attracts dozens of millions of Hindu faithful every 12 years to the city of northern Prayagraj and has a history of disasters related to the crowd, including one last month, when at least 30 people died in another stampede in the holy confluence of the Ganges, Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati rivers.
The fever at the train station in New Delhi seemed to explode on Saturday when the crowds fought to address trains for the current event, which will end on February 26.
“I can confirm 15 deaths in the hospital. They do not have an open injury. The majority (probably died) of) hypoxia or perhaps some blunt injury, but that would only be confirmed after an autopsy, “said Dr. Ritu Saxena, an attached medical superintendent of the Lok Nayak hospital in New Delhi AFP.
“There are also 11 others that are injured. Most of them are stable and have orthopedic lesions, ”he said.
Announcer NDTV Three more dead from the stampede citing an official of another hospital in the city.
Those dead were mostly women and children.
“I’ve been working as a coolie since 1981, but I never saw a crowd like it is before,” said the Times of India newspaper cited a goalkeeper at the railway station.
“People began to collide and fell on the mechanical staircase and stairs” when the platform for a special train that left Prayagraj was suddenly changed, said the goalkeeper.
Ashwini Vaishnaw Railroad Minister said a “high -level research” on the causes of the accident had been ordered.
Vaishnaw said that additional special trains were being executed from New Delhi to clear the hurry of the devotees.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was “distressed” by the stampede.
“My thoughts are with all those who have lost their loved ones. I pray that the injured have a quick recovery, ”he wrote in X.
To the governor of the territory of the capital Delhi, Vinai Kumar Saxena, he said that he had told the disaster management personnel to be deployed and “all hospitals are prepared to address the related demands.”
Kumbh Mela of six weeks is the largest milestone in the Hindu religious calendar, and the authorities said around 500 million devotees have already visited the festival since it began last month.
More than 400 people died after they were trampled or drowned in a single day of the festival in 1954, one of the largest tolls in a disaster related to the crowd worldwide.
Another 36 people were crushed until death in 2013, the last time the festival was organized in Prayagraj.
