At least 42 people, mostly women, were killed and more than 50 injured on Sunday in a stampede for food coupons at a flood relief camp in the southern Indian city of Chennai, officials said.
More than 3,000 people affected by floods had gathered at a government school in the Tamil Nadu state capital to collect food coupons early Sunday, an official said.
A police official told AFP 45 people were killed and around 50 injured. The government, however, put the death toll at 42.
"Forty two people have died in this tragic incident," Tamil Nadu state Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa said.
"I spoke to survivors and I asked them what they were doing so early in the morning since the relief coupons were to be distributed from 7:00 am and they said they were told to go early because very few coupons were left," she said.
Jayalalithaa said the state would pay the victims' families 100,000 rupees (2,212 dollars) in compensation and ordered a judicial enquiry into the incident.