At least 12 people have died and 13 were injured in a stampede at a religious shrine in Indian-administered Kashmir as thousands of pilgrims massed to offer prayers.
The disaster happened around 3am on New Year’s Day while it was still dark on the route to the Vaishno Devi shrine, one of the area’s most revered Hindu sites.
“People fell over each other ... It was difficult to figure out whose leg or arms were tangled with whose,” witness Ravinder, who gave only one name, told AFP. “I helped pick up eight bodies by the time ambulances arrived after about half an hour. I feel lucky to be alive but am still shaking with memory of what I saw.”
One official said that there was a rush to offer special prayers for the new year but this was not confirmed by others.
Mahesh, a devotee who gave only one name, told Associated Press the stampede occurred near one of the gates where pilgrims entered and exited the route to the shrine.
“Something happened near one of the gates and I found myself under a crush of people. I suffocated and fell but somehow managed to stand up,” he said. “I saw people moving over the bodies. It was a horrifying sight, but I managed to help in rescuing some injured people.”
Another devotee named Priyansh said he and 10 friends from New Delhi arrived on Friday night to visit the shrine and that two of his friends died in the incident.
“I have never seen anything like this,” he said.
The Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, expressed his condolences on Twitter. “Extremely saddened by the loss of lives due to a stampede,” Modi wrote.
Before the pandemic, every day about 100,000 devotees would trek up a steep winding track to the narrow cave containing the shrine to Vaishno Devi, about 60km from the city of Jammu. Authorities had capped the daily number to 25,000 but witnesses and press reports said that this may have been exceeded several times over.
Two stampedes in as many months in 2008 – one in Rajasthan and one in Himachal Pradesh – left more than 370 people dead. Others in Kerala in 2011 and in Madhya Pradesh two years later each killed more than 100.
In the latest incident, other reports suggested an argument had broken out between devotees.
Rescue operations started immediately and the injured – some of whom were reported to be in a serious condition – were taken to hospital.
Video footage on social media showed small minivan ambulances with flashing lights rushing to hospitals while it was still dark, as well as massive crowds.
J&K DGP Dilbagh Singh, Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Vaishno Devi stampede that killed 12 people;
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India Today's @sunilJbhat speaks to eye-witnesses #India #Jammu #VaishnoDevi #VaishnoDeviStampede pic.twitter.com/6AnXbhkldZ
Access to the shrine was halted after the stampede but later resumed.
Witness Ravinder said the crush happened at a point where huge crowds of people coming down from the shrine meet those going up. He estimated that there were at least 100,000 people.
“No one was checking registration slips of the devotees. I have been there many times but never seen such a rush of people,” he said. “It was only when some of us managed to lift a dead body up with our hands that people could see [what was happening] and made space for moving the bodies out,” he said.
With Agence France-Presse and Associated Press
