Terror, 'chaos' as India stampede kills 121

HATHRAS, India: Survivors of India’s deadliest stampede in over a decade on Wednesday recalled the horror of being crushed at a vastly overcrowded Hindu religious gathering that left 121 people dead.

A police report said more than 250,000 people attended the event in northern India’s Uttar Pradesh state, more than triple the 80,000 organisers had permission for.

On Wednesday morning, hours after the event, discarded clothing and lost shoes were scattered across the muddy site, an open field alongside a highway.

People fell on top of each other as they tumbled down a slope into a water-logged ditch, witnesses said.

“Everyone –- the entire crowd, including women and children –- all left from the event site at once,” said police officer Sheela Maurya, 50, who had been on duty Tuesday as a popular Hindu preacher delivered a sermon.

“There wasn’t enough space, and everyone just fell on top of each other.”

Almost all of the dead were women, along with seven children killed and one man.

Officials suggested the stampede was triggered when worshippers tried to gather soil from the footsteps of the preacher, while others blamed a dust storm for sparking panic.

Some fainted from the force of the crowd, before falling and being trampled upon, unable to move.

The Uttar Pradesh’s state disaster management centre, the Office of the Relief Commissioner, released a list of the dead on Wednesday morning.

It said 121 people had been killed.

Maurya, who had been on duty since early morning on Tuesday in the sweltering humid heat at the preacher’s ceremony, was among the injured.

“I tried to help some women, but even I fainted and was crushed under the crowd,” she told AFP.

“I don’t know, but someone pulled me out, and I don’t remember much.”

Deadly incidents are common at places of worship during major religious festivals in India, the biggest of which prompt millions of devotees to make pilgrimages to holy sites.

“The main highway next to the field was packed with people and vehicles for kilometres, there were far too many people here,” said Hori Lal, 45, who lives in Phulrai Mughalgadi village, near the site of the stampede.

“Once people started falling to the side and getting crushed, there was just chaos.”

Chaitra V., divisional commissioner of Aligarh city in Uttar Pradesh state, initially said panic began when “attendees were exiting the venue when a dust storm blinded their vision, leading to a melee”.

But Uttar Pradesh Chief Secretary Manoj Kumar Singh told reporters after visiting the site that worshippers had scrambled to get close to the preacher.

“I am told that people rushed to touch his feet and tried to collect soil, and a stampede took place,” Singh said, according to the Indian Express daily. “Many people fell in a nearby drain”.

At dawn on Wednesday, four unidentified bodies lay on the floor of a makeshift morgue at the hospital in the nearby town of Hathras.