Fifteen individuals died in a stampede on Saturday at New Delhi’s essential railway station as a crush of pilgrims have been making an attempt to make their option to an enormous Hindu pageant in northern India, an official mentioned.
The caretaker chief minister of the Delhi area, Atishi, who makes use of one title, instructed reporters outdoors a hospital in the capital that 15 individuals had been injured in the stampede, in addition to the 15 killed, in keeping with Indian media studies.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed condolences for the useless in an announcement on social media, including that the authorities have been “aiding all those that have been affected by this stampede.” Ashwini Vaishnaw, the nation’s minister for railroads, mentioned that an investigation had been ordered.
Earlier than the stampede, crowds at the railway station had swelled as a result of trains sure for the pageant, the Kumbh Mela, had been delayed, in keeping with native media studies. The Ministry of Railways mentioned it later ran additional trains to alleviate the crush.
The Kumbh Mela, which started in mid-January and can finish late this month, is the world’s largest spiritual gathering. It’s anticipated to attract greater than 400 million individuals over six weeks, in keeping with authorities estimates.
The pageant takes place each three years in considered one of 4 cities in India. This yr’s occasion is being held in Prayagraj, in the state of Uttar Pradesh, the place the Ganges and Yamuna Rivers meet. Hindus consider {that a} third, legendary river referred to as the Saraswati joins the opposite two there in a sacred confluence. Devotees take baths in the holy waters in the assumption that they wash away sins.
The occasion this yr, which is being referred to as a Maha Kumbh, or Nice Kumbh, is bigger than standard as a result of it coincides with a celestial alignment that takes place as soon as each 144 years.
Managing the massive crowds who attend the pageant is a serious problem for the Indian authorities.
Final month, 30 pilgrims died in a stampede as they rushed to take their baths. In 2013, the final time that Prayagraj hosted the occasion, 42 individuals have been killed in a stampede at the prepare station there. Ten years earlier than that, in the western metropolis of Nasik, 39 devotees have been crushed in an alley.
In 1954, throughout the first Kumbh Mela since India’s independence seven years earlier, a whole bunch of pilgrims died in a stampede.
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