New Delhi, India - A religious festival in northern India turned into a horrific deadly crush on Tuesday as thousands of Hindu pilgrims stampeded at a temple shrine, piling into each other on a treacherous walkway slick with spilled coconut milk. Officials said at least 147 people, mostly men, suffocated.
Television footage showed dead pilgrims strewn on the narrow walkway about 150 yards from the Chamunda Devi temple, at the southern edge of the 15th-century Mehrangarh fort in Jodphur, in the western state of Rajasthan. It was the second deadly religious tragedy in the past few months in India, where pilgrim stampedes are not uncommon.
At least 147 people died in a stampede Tuesday during a religious festival at a north Indian temple, officials said. The victims, most of them men, were suffocated as they rushed down a narrow path from the temple 150 yards above, according to the officials.
Thousands of Hindu pilgrims visit the Chamunda Devi temple at the southern edge of the 15th-century Mehrangarh fort in Jodhpur in the western state of Rajasthan.
Tuesday was the first day of a nine-day festival called Navratra that celebrates nine incarnations of the Hindu mother goddess Durga. Between 2,000 and 3,000 pilgrims were present when the stampede began at about 6 a.m.
While the exact cause of the stampede was unclear, officials said the disaster was worsened by devotees who had brought cracked coconuts as religious offerings, which slickened the temple floors and surroundings with coconut milk. Once the stampede started, many victims slipped and fell as they scrambled to escape. “It seems the narrow path became very slippery,” said Kiran Soni Gupta, chief civil servant in the district. “Most of the dead are men and without any visible physical injuries. It seems they died of suffocation.” She said the latest death toll was 147 dead, and 55 injured, with two of the injured in a serious condition. Some unconfirmed Indian news accounts reported the death toll exceeded 168.“The injured do not have any major physical injuries, not even a simple fracture,” said Dr. D. R. Mathur of Mahatma Gandhi hospital in Jodhpur. “None of the dead bodies have any injury marks. They all died of suffocation”
“Everybody was in hurry and heated arguments took place before the stampede,” a witness said on television.
In August, 148 people died in Himachal Pradesh in similar circumstances. In 2005, a fire and stampede at the Mandhar Devi hilltop temple in western India left more than 250 dead.
“A separate queue was arranged for women and children and police was deployed at 2:00 a.m., so all the necessary arrangements were made,” said Gulab Chand Kataria, the home minister of Rajasthan.