At least 30 people have been killed in a crush at the world’s largest religious gathering, the Hindu festival Kumbh Mela in northern India, officials say.
The incident took place early on Wednesday when devotees on the riverbanks in the city of Prayagraj were trampled by other pilgrims rushing to take part in a sacred day of ritual bathing.
Another 60 people were injured, police said. It took most of the day for official casualty figures to emerge, prompting opposition leaders to accuse authorities of a lack of transparency.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered condolences to those who lost loved ones. Many pilgrims are still seeking news of relatives and friends.
Police said 90 injured people had been taken to hospitals. “Unfortunately, 30 of those devotees have died,” senior police officer Vaibhav Krishna told a news conference on Wednesday evening.
He said 25 of the dead had been identified.
Earlier in the day, BBC reporters had witnessed scenes of chaos, with clothes, shoes, blankets and backpacks strewn on the ground as crowds tried to escape the site of the accident.
“People were going in every direction,” one eyewitness Ayesha Mishra told the BBC. “They were getting pushed around and falling down. Children were getting crushed by the crowds.”
Videos and photos from the scene showed people on the ground, their bruised bodies and faces covered in mud. Some were being carried away on stretchers, as ambulances zipped in and out of the sprawling tent city set up for the event.
For hours there was confusion over the number of people who had died or been injured.
The main hospital was cordoned off and reporters barred from entry. Yogi Adityanath, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh state – where Prayagraj is located – spoke of serious injuries, but did not mention deaths.
Prime Minister Modi did acknowledge there had been fatalities but did not say how many.
“I wish for the speedy recovery of all injured,” he said in a post on X, calling the incident “extremely sad”.
News of the accident did little to discourage the huge crowds thronging the venue—more than 50 million had bathed by 14:00 local time (11:30 am, Kenyan time), according to government figures.
The Kumbh Mela happens every 12 years at Sangam, the confluence of three sacred rivers – the Ganges (Ganga), Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati. Hindus believe that bathing in the sacred waters will cleanse them of sins and help them attain salvation.
