Deadly stampede at India’s Kumbh festival: Nearly 40 bodies brought to morgue, police sources say

Nevin Al Sukari - Sana'a - Police personnel carry a victim of stampede on a stretcher, during the Maha Kumbh Mela festival in Prayagraj on January 29, 2025. — AFP pic

PRAYAGRAJ (India), Jan 29 — Nearly 40 bodies were brought to a hospital morgue after a stampede at the Maha Kumbh Mela in northern India on Wednesday, three police sources told Reuters, as tens of millions gathered to bathe in sacred river waters on the most auspicious day of a six-week festival.

Bodies were still being brought to the local Moti Lal Nehru Medical College hospital morgue more than 12 hours after the tragedy at the world’s biggest gathering of humanity, though the government was yet to officially announce the casualty numbers.

“More bodies are coming in. We have nearly 40 bodies here. We are transferring them out as well and handing over to families one by one,” one of the sources said.

Senior police officer Vaibhav Krishna, when contacted for comment, said police could not give the official numbers because they were busy with crowd management.

Distraught relatives queued up to identify those killed by the stampede, which occurred when crowds surged towards the confluence of three rivers, where immersion is considered particularly sacred.

Some witnesses spoke of a huge push that caused devotees to fall on each other, while others said closure of routes to the water brought the dense crowd to a standstill and caused people to collapse due to suffocation.

“There was commotion, everybody started pushing, pulling, climbing over one another. My mother collapsed...then my sister-in-law. People ran over them,” said Jagwanti Devi, 40, as she sat in an ambulance with the bodies of her relatives.

An official at Prayagraj’s SRN Hospital, where some of the injured were taken, said those who died had either suffered heart attacks or had comorbidities like diabetes.

“People came in with fractures, broken bones...Some collapsed on the spot and were brought dead,” said the official, who did not want to be named.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered condolences to “devotees who have lost their loved ones” and said local officials were helping victims “in every possible way”, without specifying the number of dead.

Yogi Adityanath, chief minister of Uttar Pradesh state where the festival city of Prayagraj is located said the stampede was set off when some devotees tried to jump barricades put up to manage crowds between 1am and 2am (1930-2030 GMT Tuesday) near the arena of the ascetics.

At the scene, people sat on the ground crying, while others stepped over belongings left by those trying to escape the crush.

Opposition parties blame ‘mismanagement’

The Hindu festival is the world’s largest congregation of humanity, expected to draw some 400 million over its six weeks, according to officials, compared with the Haj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia which drew 1.8 million last year.

By Tuesday, nearly 200 million people had attended the 2025 festival since it started two weeks ago, officials said, adding that more than 50 million people had taken a holy dip until 2pm (0830 GMT) on Wednesday alone.

Devout Hindus believe taking a dip at the confluence of three sacred rivers — the Ganga, the Yamuna, and the mythical, invisible Saraswati — absolves people of sins and, during the Kumbh, it also brings salvation from the cycle of life and death.

Attendees this year ranged from Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Home Minister Amit Shah to Adani Group Chairman Gautam Adani and celebrities like Coldplay’s Chris Martin and actress Dakota Johnson, who local media reported reached Prayagraj on Tuesday.

Modi was expected to visit the festival next month.

Authorities had expected a record 100 million people to throng the temporary township in Prayagraj on Wednesday, and had deployed additional security and medical personnel along with AI-software based technology to manage the crowd.

A Rapid Action Force (RAF) — a special police unit called in during crisis — was deployed to bring the situation under control after the stampede and rescue efforts were underway, officials said.

A senior state official said earlier on Wednesday that at least seven people had died and 10 more had been injured, declining to be named as he was not authorised to speak to media.

Social media posts spoke of heavy traffic congestion on roads leading into Prayagraj as authorities tried to manage the crowd, leaving several people stranded.

“I planned this trip for over a year, but I’ve been stuck in traffic for 19 hours,” American travel blogger Drew Binsky said on Instagram, where he has more than 1.2 million followers.

Opposition parties criticised the federal and state governments and blamed the stampede on what they called “mismanagement” and “VIP culture”.

“VIP culture should be curbed and the government should make better arrangements to meet the needs of common devotees,” Rahul Gandhi, leader of the main opposition Congress party said on X, referring to politicians and celebrities being treated differently.

A similar stampede had broken out on the most auspicious day of the festival when it was last held in 2013, killing at least 36 pilgrims, mostly women. — Reuters