Stampede at popular religious shrine in India’s Kashmir kills 12
- Investigation ordered into cause of deadly crush at the Mata Vaishno Devi shrine in Kashmir
- Witness blames crowd mismanagement as people rushed to offer special prayers for new year
Twelve people were crushed to death in a stampede at an Indian religious shrine in the early hours of Saturday as tens of thousands of pilgrims massed to offer prayers, officials said.
The disaster unfolded in darkness at around 3am on the packed route to the Vaishno Devi shrine in Indian-administered Kashmir, visited by millions every year as one of Hinduism’s most revered sites.
“People fell over each other … It was difficult to figure out whose leg or arms were tangled with whose,” survivor Ravinder said by phone.
“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,” he said.
Video footage showed terrified pilgrims clinging onto metal rafters to escape the rush and the blue lights of small minivan ambulances flashing in the darkness as they tried to rush to hospitals through huge crowds.