What caused the deadly stampede in Hathras, India?

At least 120 people died in a crowd crush during a religious gathering with Hindu guru Bhole Baba.

At least 121 people, the vast majority of them women, have died in a crowd crush on Tuesday in India’s Hathras district, at a religious gathering for the Hindu guru, Bhole Baba.

Here is all we know about the incident which took place on Tuesday afternoon:

A large crowd of 250,000 devotees of the religious leader Suraj Pal, also known as Bhole Baba, gathered for a satsang – prayer meeting – in a village in Hathras on Tuesday. About 80,000 of them had been allowed to enter a field serving as the main venue for the prayer meeting.

Many people had gathered in a makeshift tent where the prayer meeting was taking place, pitched atop muddy terrain.

Bhole is a Dalit, a group of people at the bottom of India’s caste system. Many of his followers are also from so-called “lower castes”, and are female or poor.

Chaos erupted when Bhole got off stage and left the tent to get into his car after the prayer meeting.

Scores of people rushed out of the tent towards his car, trampling each other, in a bid to touch his feet or the ground he had walked on, according to a police report filed afterwards.

Many people were killed in the crush, suffocating to death. Some also fell into an adjacent mud field and were crushed there.

Overcrowding: The police had allowed 80,000 people to enter the venue for the gathering, which saw a total turnout of about 250,000, according to a police report filed after the incident. It is unclear how many among these were inside the tent.

Lack of exits: Disaster management experts have speculated that the lack of an adequate number of exits in the tent caused thousands to try to cram through one exit. “The function