Stampede at India’s Maha Kumbh Mela Hindu Festival: Many Feared Dead

MT HANNACH
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Many people were feared to have been killed Wednesday early after millions of Hindu pilgrims at Maha Kumbh MelaA huge festival in the Indian city of Prayagraj, rushed to bathe in the waters of the Holy River on what is considered one of the most favorable dates of the Hindu calendar.

While the pilgrims rushed to the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, the Hindus consider sacred, thousands of people who slept on the banks of the river were trampled on, the safety barricades broke and the fences that the fences have been lowered, government officials and witnesses according to officials. Others were trying to escape after swimming, adding to the chaos.

New York Times journalists have seen people stretching on the ground, their bodies and their covered faces, and emergency staff carrying people on civilians and ambulances.

However, a few hours after the jostling, government representatives had not yet published victim figures. In a brief speech on Wednesday, Yogi Adityanath, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, said that some faithful had been “seriously injured”, but local reports suggested that dozens have died.

“They invited us here to die,” said Ajay Singh, a farmer from the Gonda district in Uttar Pradesh. “They invited faithful through the media, channels, phones, newspapers”, but have poorly managed the event, said Singh.

He was sleeping on the banks of the river with his family when the police started pushing people outside. The mother, aunt and uncle of Mr. Singh fell, and they all suffered injuries on the back and the ribs. He said he had seen about five corpses when he was trapped.

The Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj, one of the largest religious rallies in the world, occurs every 12 years. The Hindus believe that swimming in the place where the two holy rivers meet, as well as a third mythical river called Sarasvati, will purge them with all sins and help them reach salvation. Due to certain favorable celestial alignments, millions of others were expected this year during the event, named “Maha” or Great Kumbh.

Although there are a certain number of days considered to be well to bathe during the event, the period at the end of January 28 and before the morning of January 29 was considered particularly favorable. Government representatives said they expected 100 million people then to rivers.

The Uttar Pradesh state government, where Prayagraj is located, estimated that around 400 million people in total would attend the six -week festival everywhere in India. To house them all, the government has built a temporary city on the banks of the Ganges, with tents, toilets, streets, ponton bridges and waste management facilities. The government has also built temporary bath platforms using sandbags to facilitate the establishment of people in the water.

Adityanath said that the injured had been transported to hospital, but hadn’t said if none had died. He called on pilgrims to carry out their rituals on the nearest platform rather than pushing to go to the confluence, saying that the meaning of the day was by bathing anywhere along the Ganges. Adityanath said that Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, the Minister of Internal Affairs, had called him several times for updates and offered aid.

The danger posed by huge crowds was a frequent problem at Kumbh Mela and other religious events. In 2013, 42 people were killed And 45 injured in a boost on a train platform. And in July, more than 100 people were killed and a lot of injuries During a prayer meeting Organized by a local guru who said that officials had to high temperatures and overcrowding.

Government representatives have become much more organized and focused on the security of pilgrims after the deaths of 2013. This year, the government of Uttar Pradesh used more sophisticated technology to monitor the influx and the flow of people so that police staff in the field can redirect the crowds.

Pilgrims “come gradually and go out simultaneously,” a senior government official said Vijay Vishwas on Tuesday. Millions of pilgrims had started to flow during the day, but there was no defined formula on how the crowd was going to go out, said Pant. The goal was to make pilgrims move safely, he added. “Everything is dynamic.”

Despite the precautions, the festival employees and others encouraged people to go towards the confluence of the rivers, some even using the public addresses system to do so. Police officials were unable to clean up the bath areas before more pilgrims rushed, officials said. While the pilgrims were trying to escape, they created situations of the Stampede type elsewhere, according to witnesses.

The Kumbh Mela festival, which is shot among four cities every three years, is known for the massive number of Hindu faithful who attend, including monks and ascetics of various orders of Hinduism and ordinary pilgrims.

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