Over 116 people have been trampled and crushed to death at a religious event in northern India.
The bodies are placed on truck beds and many of the victims were women and children.
“The incident occurred due to crowding when people were trying to leave the place,” said Ashish Kumar, administrator of Hathras district.
The accident happened in a village in Hathras district, about 200 km southeast of the capital New Delhi, where thousands of people had gathered to celebrate the Hindu god Shiva. It writes Reuters.
When people were leaving a large tent, it partially collapsed and panic broke out among those trying to get out. Now over 116 people are said to have died. A further 150 have been taken to hospital and it is feared that the death toll will continue to rise.
“The incident occurred due to crowding when people were trying to leave the place,” Ashish Kumar, administrator of Hathras district in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, told the media.
Bodies on streets and truck beds
Another government official, Chaitra V., told the India Today TV channel that many may have fallen while searching for water in the heat.
– There was wet mud in one place where people may have slipped. Due to the heat, people may have also gone to the place where the water was and that may also have caused the incident, she said.
Suresh Chandra, an eyewitness who was at the gathering, told local media:
– There must have been about 50,000 people… at the highway gate, some people went left and some people went right, the panic was caused in that confusion.
In video clips from the scene, lifeless bodies can be seen lying on the street and truck beds. Bags and mobile phones were collected to help identify the dead.
One of the worst accidents
According to Indian authorities, this is one of the worst accidents of its kind in the country’s history.
Similar disasters have occurred in the past during religious events and at pilgrimage sites. In 2013, 115 people died in central India when panic broke out. In 2008, nearly 250 people died in a similar incident, and 340 more died during an annual pilgrimage in the western state of Maharashtra in 2005, local media reported.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has demanded an inquiry into today’s disaster.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi says he is sending his condolences to the families of the victims and that they should be financially compensated.