Death Toll in India Stampede Rises to 115

The death toll from a stampede of a crowd of devotees at a Hindu temple in central India has risen to 115, Indian authorities said on Monday.

On Sunday, the Ratangarh Mata temple in the state of Madhya Pradesh was packed with pilgrims as it was one of the last days of the Durga Puja festival, which honors the female Hindu deity Durga. More than 100,000 people visit the temple at this time every year, an official at the district collector's office said.

Thousands were crowding a 550-yard-long bridge that runs over the Sindh River on the way to the temple when some of them panicked, worried that the bridge was collapsing, said D.K. Arya, the deputy inspector general of police for the area.

Manoj Sharma, a betel-nut vendor who was on his way back from the temple when the panic started, watched from shore as people jumped or were pushed off the bridge.

"My heart stopped," he said. "The police just couldn't control the crowds."

In addition to those killed, more than 100 people were injured in the stampede, the Mr. Arya said.

R.S. Gupta, the chief medical officer of Datia district, where the incident happened, said 29 of the dead were children below the age of 12.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expressed his "deep sorrow and shock" at the deaths on Sunday. "On this day of festivities, our hearts and prayers are with the victims and their families."

Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Madhya Pradesh's chief minister, ordered a judicial inquiry into the crowd-management procedures at the site.

One of the largest gatherings in the world, the Kumbh Mela, a Hindu festival attended by tens of millions of people, has had a number of deadly stampedes. In February, more than 35 people died in a stampede at a railway station in the northern Indian city of Allahabad during the event.

In 2008, around 200 people were killed in a stampede at a temple in Jodhpur, in the western Indian state of Rajasthan. The same year, a temple stampede in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh killed more than 150.

QFA (India Rep)

OOC: As tragic as this, must we continue to post these types of threads up? It stimulates very little debate and members can't do much apart from send their condolences. Isn't that why we had the condolences thread in the first place?