A look at stampedes and crowd disasters in India over the years

Several people are feared dead and many more injured as tens of thousands of Hindus rushed to take a holy bath in the river at the massive Maha Kumbh festival in India

PRAYAGRAJ, India -- Several people are feared dead and many more injured as tens of thousands of Hindus rushed to bathe in a sacred river at the massive Maha Kumbh festival in India.

Wednesday was a holy day in the six-week festival, which started on Jan. 13, and authorities were expecting a record 100 million devotees to engage in ritual bathing at the confluence of the Ganges, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati rivers.

The Maha Kumbh festival, held every 12 years, is the world’s largest religious gathering. Authorities expect more than 400 million people to visit the pilgrimage site this year.

Here’s a look at other major stampedes in India over the past two decades:

More than 100 people were killed in a stampede in northern India in July 2024 following a Hindu religious gathering, making it one of the deadliest such accidents in years. Thousands had gathered at a makeshift tent for an event led by a Hindu preacher in Uttar Pradesh state. The victims were crushed to death as they rushed to leave. Video of the aftermath showed the makeshift structure appeared to have collapsed.

A collapsing bridge caused a stampede that killed 115 people, mostly women and children, on Oct. 13, 2013. Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims had come to a Hindu temple in the remote town of Ratangarh in Madhya Pradesh state on the last day of the popular 10-day Navaratri festival.

At least 168 people were killed and 100 injured when thousands of pilgrims stampeded at a Hindu temple in Jodhpur on Sept. 30, 2008. Severe overcrowding apparently caused the crush, as more than 12,000 people gathered at the temple to celebrate Navaratri, a Hindu festival.

Dozens of women and children were among the 145 people who died on Aug. 3, 2008, when thousands of pilgrims stampeded at a remote mountaintop temple in northern India during celebrations to honor Shakrti, a Hindu goddess. The devotees attended a nine-day religious festival at the Naina Devi Temple in the Bilaspur district of Himachal Pradesh state. Rumors of a landslide apparently started the panic, according to a senior government official.

A stampede during a religious procession to a hilltop temple on Jan. 25, 2005, killed at least 258 people and injured 200 in western India, near the village of Wai, some 150 miles (241 kilometers) south of Mumbai. The stampede was triggered after several Hindu pilgrims inside the temple fell on a slippery floor and were crushed to death by other pilgrims who apparently walked on them. Angered over the deaths, some pilgrims started a fire that gutted hundreds of makeshift shops along a narrow walkway leading to the temple and set off the deadly rush.