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LUCKNOW, India: Nearly 100 people were trampled to death and several others were injured at a Hindu religious gathering in northern India on Tuesday (July 2), a senior government official said.
A large crowd gathered near the city of Hatteras to hear a sermon from a famous preacher, but as the people were leaving, a fierce sandstorm caused panic.
Many houses were crushed or trampled, piled on top of each other, and some collapsed into roadside gutters in the chaos.
“We have confirmed 97 deaths so far and we are working on providing relief and medical assistance to the victims,” Chaitra V, divisional commissioner of Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh, told AFP.
“At the time, the participants were preparing to leave the venue when a dust storm obscured their vision, leading to a scuffle between the two sides and the subsequent tragic events,” she said.
Most of the dead were women, said state chief medical officer Umesh Kumar Tripathi, who told reporters that “many injured” had been taken to hospitals.
Rows of ambulances took the injured to hospitals.
Wailing women and weeping men gathered outside a morgue in the town of Etah, where many of the dead were taken, seeking news of their relatives.
Deadly incidents at places of worship often occur during India’s major religious festivals, the biggest of which prompt millions of believers to make pilgrimages to holy sites.
“After the sermon, everyone started running out,” a woman who gave her name only as Shakuntala told the Press Trust of India news agency.
“People fell into the roadside gutter. One by one, they fell and were finally crushed to death.”
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced $2,400 in compensation to the relatives of those killed in the “tragic incident” and $600 to the injured.
“My condolences to those who have lost their loved ones… I wish a speedy recovery to all the injured,” Modi wrote on social media platform X.
President Dropadi Murmu said the tragic deaths were “heartbreaking” and offered her “deepest condolences”.
DISAPPEARING RECORD
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath also “expressed his condolences” to the victims’ relatives, his office said.
“He has directed the district administration officials to immediately send the injured to hospital… and expedite rescue operations at the site,” the report said.
Adityanath’s office said it has ordered an investigation into the death.
Religious gatherings in India have been the scene of several fatal incidents due to poor crowd management and security lapses.
In 2016, a huge explosion at a temple over a ban on fireworks to celebrate the Hindu New Year killed at least 112 people.
The blast destroyed concrete buildings and sparked a fire at a temple complex in Kerala state where thousands of people had gathered.
In 2013, another 115 devotees died in a stampede on a bridge near a temple in Madhya Pradesh, India.
As many as 400,000 people gathered in the area, sparking a stampede amid rumours that the bridge was about to collapse.
In 2008, a stampede at a hilltop temple in the northern city of Jodhpur killed 224 pilgrims and injured more than 400.
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