MUMBAI (Reuters) – Nearly 70 people were feared dead in a stampede at a Hindu religious gathering in India’s northern state of Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday, authorities said, in one of the worst such tragedies in recent years.
The stampede happened in a village in Hathras district, about 200 km (125 miles) southeast of the national capital New Delhi, where authorities said a large crowd had gathered on an open area of land in response to a call from a religious leader.
Here is a list of major stampedes in India over the years, most of them at religious festivals or gatherings:
JANUARY 2005: More than 265 Hindu devotees were killed and hundreds more injured after a stampede at the Mandhardevi temple in Wai town in the western state of Maharashtra. The stampede was caused by slippery steps leading up to the temple, media reported at the time.
AUGUST 2008: At the mountaintop Naina Devi temple in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh, about 145 Hindu pilgrims died after rumours of a landslide triggered a stampede.
SEPTEMBER 2008: A total of 250 people were trampled to death at the Chamundagar temple in the northern desert state of Rajasthan as pilgrims gathered to celebrate Navratri, a nine-day festival that celebrates the Goddess Durga.
MARCH 2010: At least 63 people, more than half of them children, were killed in a stampede triggered by a massive rush for free food and clothes at a Hindu temple in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh after people gathered to collect free food and clothes at the site, media reported.
FEBRUARY, 2013: At least 36 Hindu pilgrims were killed in a stampede on the busiest day of the Kumbh Mela, a gathering where more than 100 million pilgrims collect over a period of two months in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh in 2013. Of the dead, 27 were women, including an eight-year-old girl.
NOVEMBER 2013: Around 115 people were killed and more than a hundred injured after a stampede at the Ratangarh temple in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh after more than 150,000 people gathered to celebrate Navratri.
JANUARY 2022: At least 12 people died and more were injured in a stampede at the Vaishno Devi shrine in Jammu and Kashmir, after a huge crowd of devotees tried to enter the narrow shrine.
(Compiled by Shilpa Jamkhandikar; Editing by Sharon Singleton)
