MUMBAI (Reuters) – Several people were feared dead after a stampede at the Maha Kumbh Mela or Great Pitcher Festival in northern India’s Uttar Pradesh State on Wednesday, on one of the holiest days of the event, as tens of millions gathered at the site.
Here is a list of major stampedes in India over previous years, most of them at religious festivals or gatherings:
JANUARY 2025: At least six people were killed and 35 injured in a stampede near one of India’s busiest and richest temples, in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, after thousands of devout Hindus assembled there to secure free visit passes.
JULY 2024: Around 121 people died after thousands of devotees rushed to get a closer glimpse of a Hindu preacher in the Hathras district of Uttar Pradesh state.
JANUARY 2022: At least 12 people died and more were injured in a stampede at the Vaishno Devi shrine in Jammu and Kashmir, after a huge crowd of devotees tried to enter the narrow shrine.
NOVEMBER 2013: Around 115 people were killed and more than a hundred injured after a stampede at the Ratangarh temple in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh after more than 150,000 people gathered to celebrate Navratri, a nine-day festival that celebrates the Goddess Durga.
FEBRUARY, 2013: At least 36 Hindu pilgrims were killed in a stampede on the busiest day of the Kumbh Mela in Uttar Pradesh in 2013. Of the dead, 27 were women, including an eight-year-old girl.
MARCH 2010: At least 63 people, more than half of them children, were killed in a stampede triggered by a massive rush for free food and clothes at a Hindu temple in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, media reported.
SEPTEMBER 2008: A total of 250 people were trampled to death at the Chamundagar temple in the northern desert state of Rajasthan as pilgrims gathered to celebrate Navratri.
AUGUST 2008: At the mountaintop Naina Devi temple in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh, about 145 Hindu pilgrims died after rumours of a landslide triggered a stampede.
JANUARY 2005: More than 265 Hindu devotees were killed and hundreds more injured after a stampede at the Mandhardevi temple in Wai town in the western state of Maharashtra. The stampede was caused by slippery steps leading up to the temple, media reported at the time.
(Compiled by Shilpa Jamkhandikar; Editing by Sharon Singleton and Raju Gopalakrishna)
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