Deadly crowd crush at India’s Mahakumbh Mela: All to know
About 400 million pilgrims are expected to participate in the world’s largest religious festival on Wednesday.
Several people have been killed with many more injured after a deadly crowd crush at the world’s largest religious gathering at the Mahakumbh Mela in northern India’s Prayagraj city.
Yogi Adityanath, chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, the state in which Prayagraj is located, said on Wednesday morning that the crush occurred after pilgrims rushed to participate in an early morning bathing ritual, jumping over barricades aimed at controlling crowds during the event.
Near the river, pilgrim Renu Devi, 48, told the AFP news agency that they were sitting near a barricade during the incident, and the “entire crowd fell on top of me, trampling me as it moved forward”.
“When the crowd surged, elderly people and women were crushed, and no one came forward to help,” Devi added.
According to Adityanath, by 8am local time on Wednesday, about 30 million people had taken a holy dip.
Here’s everything we know about the crowd crush:
Witnesses told the Reuters news agency that there was a huge push near the three rivers that are considered holy, which caused the worshippers to fall on each other at 1am (19:30 GMT).
Vijay Kumar, who attended the festival, told Reuters after the incident, “There were people lying all around, I don’t know if they were dead or alive.”
An unnamed woman who was part of the crowd told the Indian news agency, ANI, that people “kept stepping” on her and her mother when they fell in the crush.
“I am safe, but my mother has died,” she said.
So far, authorities have not yet confirmed the death toll, but local media has reported that at least 10 people have been killed.
The Kumbh Mela, which translates as