Human Stampede: India Suffers Deaths In Hindu Religious Festivals [Video]

During a human stampede, India suffered many deaths, which occurred over the past week at multiple Hindu religious festivals. In at least two instances, the human stampede has caused the deaths of at least 29 people, mostly women.

In a related report by the Inquisitr, hundreds of goats stampede after being released from a Berkeley lab, and the whole thing was caught on video.

While it may be odd to hear about so many deaths from a human stampede, India has a population that is over 1.25 billion and growing. During a Hindu religious festival, the crush of the crowd can become overwhelming, with people pushing and shoving in the direction they want to go. Unfortunately, some people fall down when this happens, and they are crushed underfoot by the surging crowd.

Rajahmundry, a major city in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, suffered a human stampede during a riverside religious festival. The 12-day festival, called Pushkaram or Pushkaralu in the Telugu language, is a Hindu bathing festival dedicated to river worship. Arun Kumar, the chief of the district where the human stampede took place, said there were “inadequate arrangements” made for crowd control. One area of the bank was only equipped to handle around 30,000 people, so when 100,000 people rushed the river bank, it was chaos.

“There was chaos at the entrance. And suddenly there was this stampede,” Kumar told CNN.

More than 40 people were injured during the human stampede, and 27 people died. Responding to the news of the stampede, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid his condolences to the victim’s families.

“Deeply pained at the loss of lives due to stampede at Rajahmundry,” Modi said on Twitter. “My condolences to the families of the deceased and prayers with the injured.”

In eastern India, a second human stampede killed even more. According to the Press Trust of India, tens of thousands of people were attending a Hindu religious festival called Rath Yatra, or Chariot Festival, in the temple town of Puri in Orissa state. Authorities said the human stampede started when the crowd began pushing toward a chariot being carried as part of a religious procession.

During this second stampede, India’s authorities say 10 people were injured and two women were killed. Two of the injured people were sent to the hospital and they were said to be in critical condition.

While this human stampede is devastating, BT says the deadliest human stampede occurred in October of 2013, when the crowds killed 110 people, mostly women and children.

[Image via Asia One]