The least 18 died crushed and trampled on Saturday night at New Delhi Railway Station in India, when a crowd tried to reach the trains that would take them to the religious festival “Maha Kumbh Mela”, in the city of Prayagraj, in the neighboring state of UTTAR PRADESH. Among the dead are women and children.
Images on social networks show the crowd trying to get into overcrowded wagons, while other images focus on moments after the confusion, with various people and shoes scattered from people on the station floor.
The newspaper The Times of Indiaciting witnesses, said that “increased crowd” was caused by the delay of two trains, which led to an unexpectedly large number of passengers waiting on the platforms. When people ran to board a arrive, “the situation came out of control, with some passengers fainting through the sudden increase.”
The government has been trying to deny the information that a wrong message in the station sound system has led people to go to a specific platform.
Maha Kkumbh is the largest milestone in the Hindu religious calendar, and authorities said about 500 million devotees and pilgrim have visited the festival since early January.
(Com Reuters e The Times of India)
