At least 149 people were killed and scores injured on Tuesday in a frenzied stampede at a Hindu temple in western India, police said. The disaster occurred as more than 25,000 worshippers clambered to reach the 15th-century Chamunda Devi temple in the hill-top Mehrangarh Fort in Jodhpur in the tourist state of Rajasthan.
The stampede came at the start of Navaratri, a nine-day Hindu festival which is one of the most important in the Hindu calendar and when crowds are particularly large. "We can now say 149 people have died and around 60 are injured," Rajasthan's Home Secretary S.N. Thanvi told AFP.
Officials said the stampede appeared to have started when a wall along the narrow path leading up to the temple collapsed, killing several people and sparking widespread panic. People were trampled and suffocated to death. "The stampede began when people lost their footing and set off a chain reaction," Thanvi said.
Officials said many of the injured were seriously hurt. After the stampede, devotees carried limp bodies to police vehicles, while others desperately tried to resuscitate victims. Temple stampedes are common during religious festivities in India, where crowd control is often rudimentary or non-existent.
"I was to join my friend this morning to offer prayers but I was a little late," recalled a dazed Jodhpur university student named Manish. "When I arrived, I saw chaos, people rushing around the place. I looked for my friend and after a while found him. He was unconscious but without serious injuries," Manish told AFP.
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