Officials say the death toll from a stampede during a Hindu festival in northern India has risen to 36.
Medical superintendent Dr P Padmakar of the main state-run hospital said Monday that at least 30 other pilgrims were injured in the crush at the main rail station in the pilgrim city of Allahabad.
Twenty-seven of the dead were women, mostly elderly and poor. An eight-year-old girl was also crushed to death. A Reuters witness saw a woman weeping at the train station, surrounded by six bodies dressed in brightly colored saris. Tens of thousands of people were in the station when a section of a footbridge there collapsed, leading to the stampede late on Sunday.
Indian railway minister Pawan Bansal said the stampede happened in the Allahabad train station on Sunday evening. News reports said tens of thousands of people were in the station when a section of a footbridge there collapsed, leading to the stampede.
Television showed large crowds pushing and jostling at the train station as policemen struggled to restore order.
"There was complete chaos. There was no doctor or ambulance for at least two hours after the accident," a witness told NDTV news channel.
An estimated 30 million Hindus were expected to take a dip at the Sangam, the confluence of the Ganges, the Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati rivers on Sunday, one of the holiest bathing days of the Kumbh Mela, or Pitcher Festival. The festival lasts 55 days and is one of the world's largest religious gatherings.
The auspicious bathing days are decided by the alignment of stars, and the most dramatic feature of the festival is the Naga sadhus ascetics with ash rubbed all over their bodies, wearing only marigold garlands leaping joyfully into the holy waters.
According to Hindu mythology, the Kumbh Mela celebrates the victory of gods over demons in a furious battle over nectar that would give them immortality. As one of the gods fled with a pitcher of the nectar across the skies, it spilled on four Indian towns_Allahabad, Nasik, Ujjain and Haridwar.
The Kumbh Mela is held four times every 12 years in those towns. Hindus believe that sins accumulated in past and current lives require them to continue the cycle of death and rebirth until they are cleansed. If they bathe at the Ganges on the most auspicious day of the festival, believers say they can rid themselves of their sins.
Deadly stampedes are common at India's vast pilgrimages and religious festivals. In 2008, 145 people died when a panicking crowd pushed people over a ravine near the Himalayan temple of Naina Devi. Thousands of police and volunteers are used for crowd control during the Kumbh Mela, manning the river bank when the pilgrims and naked, dreadlocked ascetics dash into the water to bathe. The festival has its roots in a Hindu tradition that says the god Vishnu wrested a golden pot from demons containing the nectar of immortality. In a 12-day fight for possession, four drops fell to earth, in the cities of Allahabad, Haridwar, Ujain and Nasik. Every three years a Kumbh Mela is held at one of these spots, with the festival at Allahabad the holiest of them all. The festival grows in size every time it is held and is considered the world's largest temporary gathering of people. Officials said some 30 million visited the site on Sunday, considered the most auspicious day to bathe in the river. More than 2,000 years old, the festival is a meeting point for Hindu "sadhu" ascetics, some of whom live in forests or Himalayan caves and who belong to dozens of inter-related congregations. The sects have their own administration and elect leaders, but are also known for violent clashes among themselves. Monday 11 February 2013
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/10/allahabad-train-station-stampede
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