India: At least 30 people killed in stampede during massive Kumbh Mela pilgrimage
Over 400 million people gather in the city of Prayagraj to celebrate this Hindu festival.
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Pilgrims at the Kumbh Mela festival.
At least 30 people were killed Wednesday in a stampede in Prayagraj, a town in northern India hosting the Hindu pilgrimage of the Kumbh Mela, with an expected 400 million worshippers.
This great religious event, presented as the largest human concentration on the planet, congregates every twelve years crowds of Hindu faithful who bathe in the confluence of two sacred rivers to atone for their sins.
Neither the local authorities nor the security forces issued for now a balance of the stampede.
At the scene of the accident, amid a pile of abandoned clothes, shoes and other belongings, members of rescue teams and pilgrims were evacuating the victims.
A kilometer away, next to a huge tent set up as a health care center during the festival, dozens of relatives waiting impatiently for news of the victims.
The office of the Indian prime minister, Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi, issued a statement to express its "deepest condolences" to the families of the victims.
Modi's government had heavily promoted this edition of the festival, highlighting it as the largest human gathering in history, with an estimated 400 million attendees expected between January 13 and February 26.
For comparison, the major Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia attracted around 1.8 million people in 2024.
To accommodate the attendees, authorities set up a vast tent city covering an area equivalent to two-thirds of New York's Manhattan Island. Additionally, more than 40,000 police officers were deployed to maintain security.
However, Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi attributed the accident to "mismanagement and the preferential treatment given by the authorities to VIPs, rather than to ordinary worshippers."
"The safety of pilgrims is the most important thing for us," assured the regional chief executive, Yogi Adityanath, shortly before the incident. However, he added, "it is difficult with trolling crowds like this."
Religious events like this are often the site of fatal accidents in the world's most populous country, typically due to poor crowd management and security shortcomings.
In July, more than 120 people were killed in the state of Uttar Pradesh, where Prayagraj is located, during a stampede at an event held by a prominent Hindu preacher that attracted 250,000 followers.
The Kumbh Mela festival has seen deadly incidents in the past. In 1954, more than 400 people were killed, either crushed or drowned, in just one day.
In the most recent edition of the festival in 2013, 36 attendees were killed in a stampede at Prayagraj station.
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