Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the incident “extremely sad” and extended his condolences without specifying how many had died. “My deepest condolences to the devotees who have lost their loved ones.
Along with this, I wish for the speedy recovery of all the injured,” Modi said in a post on social platform X. Several pilgrims were injured, some seriously, in the stampede between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. as they tried to jump barricades erected for the movement of religious saints, Uttar Pradesh state’s top elected official, Yogi Adityanath, said in a televised statement. He made no mention of any deaths even eight hours after the crush of pilgrims at the site.
Some local news websites said 10 people had died. Distressed families lined up outside a makeshift hospital inquiring about their missing relatives, rescuers were helping the injured and police tried to manage the crowds. People’s belongings like clothes, blankets and backpacks were strewn around the scene of the stampede. It was not immediately clear what triggered the panic.
“The situation is now under control, but there is a massive crowd of pilgrims,” Adityanath said, adding that 90 million to 100 million pilgrims had congregated there. “About 30 million people had taken the holy bath by 8 a.m. Wednesday,” he said.
Wednesday was a sacred day during the six-week festival, and authorities were expecting a record 100 million devotees to engage in a ritual bath at the confluence of the Ganges, the Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati rivers. Hindus believe that a dip at the confluence will cleanse them of their past sins and end their process of reincarnation.
The main draw are thousands of ash-smeared Hindu ascetics who make massive processions toward the confluence to bathe. Millions continued to throng the site even as police officials urged them over megaphones to avoid the confluence. Adityanath urged people to instead take baths at other riverbanks.
The Maha Kumbh festival, held every 12 years, started on Jan. 13 and is the world’s largest religious gathering. Authorities expect more than 400 million people to throng the pilgrimage site in total. Nearly 150 million people have already attended, including the likes of Defense Minister Rajnath Singh and Home Minister Amit Shah and celebrities like Coldplay’s Chris Martin. A sprawling tent city was built on the riverbanks to accommodate visitors.
It has roads, electricity and water, 3,000 kitchens and 11 hospitals. About 50,000 security personnel are stationed in the city to maintain law and order and manage crowds, and more than 2,500 cameras monitor crowd movement and density so officials can try to prevent such crushes. Deadly stampedes are relatively common around Indian religious festivals, where large crowds gather in small areas.
In 2013, at least 40 pilgrims who were taking part in the same festival were killed in a stampede at a train station in Prayagraj.
Rephrase in a different way as if you were a native American speaker as a content creation expert and do not talk about yourself or your experience in the text and do not show yourself as an artificial intelligence who wrote and fill the bullet point in the topic and speak the heart of the topic itself and dont take date of blog in ther first and dont take text like box of newsliter subscribe on post from content and romove all linke insert in content and and remove all affiliate disclosure phrases on content like this “This post may contain Amazon or other affiliate links that allow us to earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Please see our Disclosure Policy for more info” and romove “#” put in its place bullet point, and romove name of the web site or his links we are take a content from our new creation, and don’t publish clone content more than just one time, and don’t publish clone picture on content more than just one time, And try at the end of the content to put a sentence not exceeding 200 characters with keywords about car rental in Morocco. I work in car rental in Morocco at airports. Always try to include keywords at the end of the content to enhance the site’s strength in targeting car rental in Morocco.