Thirty killed in crush at India’s Kumbh Mela festival

At least 30 people have been killed in a crush at the world’s largest religious gathering, the Hindu festival Kumbh Mela in northern India, officials say.

The incident took place early on Wednesday when devotees on the riverbanks in the city of Prayagraj were trampled by other pilgrims rushing to take part in a sacred day of ritual bathing.

Another 60 people were injured, police said. It took most of the day for official casualty figures to emerge, prompting opposition leaders to accuse authorities of a lack of transparency.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered condolences to those who lost loved ones. Many pilgrims are still seeking news of relatives and friends.

Police said 90 injured people had been taken to hospitals. “Unfortunately, 30 of those devotees have died,” senior police officer Vaibhav Krishna told a news conference on Wednesday evening.

He said 25 of the dead had been identified.

Earlier in the day, BBC reporters had witnessed scenes of chaos, with clothes, shoes, blankets and backpacks strewn on the ground as crowds tried to escape the site of the accident.

“People were going in every direction,” one eyewitness Ayesha Mishra told the BBC. “They were getting pushed around and falling down. Children were getting crushed by the crowds.”

Videos and photos from the scene showed people on the ground, their bruised bodies and faces covered in mud. Some were being carried away on stretchers, as ambulances zipped in and out of the sprawling tent city set up for the event.

For hours there was confusion over the number of people who had died or been injured.

The main hospital was cordoned off and reporters barred from entry. Yogi Adityanath, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh state – where Prayagraj is located – spoke of serious injuries, but did not mention deaths.

Prime Minister Modi did acknowledge there had been fatalities but did not say how many.

“I wish for the speedy recovery of all injured,” he said in a post on X, calling the incident “extremely sad”.

News of the accident did little to discourage the huge crowds thronging the venue – more than 50 million had bathed by 14:00 local time (08:30GMT), according to government figures.

The Kumbh Mela happens every 12 years at Sangam, the confluence of three sacred rivers – the Ganges (Ganga), Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati. Hindus believe that bathing in the sacred waters will cleanse them of sins and help them attain salvation.

While the holy bath is the main draw, the event is also a vibrant carnival of faith, where people from all walks of lives, including ascetics, politicians and celebrities, converge to celebrate.

Crowds from all over the country – and the world – have been arriving in Prayagraj to participate in the festival which began on 13 January and will go on until 26 February. Some have come alone, others with their family, including children and the elderly.

Wednesday was the biggest and most important bathing day of the festival, with officials estimating crowds of up to 100 million people. It’s also the day of the Shahi snan – or the royal bath – that sees thousands of ash-smeared ascetics taking a plunge in the river.

By Tuesday evening, crowds had already begun to swell up and an air of jubilance engulfed the venue. Ecstatic devotees sang and danced in large and colourful processions. And people were looking forward to taking a dip the next morning.

But the celebrations soon turned into a moment of horror.

The news of the crush first broke between 01:00 and 02:00 local time (19:30- 20:30 GMT) when many ambulances were seen entering and leaving the venue.

Eyewitnesses told the BBC that devotees had been sleeping around the barricades of the Sangam nose – the point of confluence of the rivers – when the crowd surged towards them, leading to the crush.

People began to run in confusion, many of them injured. Others had their clothes torn.

“The crowds were so huge that people were trampling upon each other. Me and my family, we all fell down,” said Poonam Singh, a devotee, who came with seven relatives of hers, all of whom were missing.

“I lost all my money, my belongings and I can’t find my family anywhere,” she added.

Uncertainty over what had happened added to the chaos. Many devotees said they sensed something was wrong, but decided to proceed anyway as there was no confirmation from authorities about the situation.

The first announcements were made around 04:00, when officials started asking people to stop going to the Sangam nose and instead take a dip at the nearest river bank they could find.

But that did not change much – by then, paths leading to the Sangam were already jam packed.

Tens of thousands of people continued to proceed – and still were doing so, hours after the accident.

The ascetics had earlier said they would cancel their appearance, but later made their way to bathe at Sangam, although with their processions scaled down.

For many pilgrims, the search for loved ones stretched through the day, and continued into the night. Many remained at the site of the accident, where slippers, clothes and other belongings of the victims lay covered in mud. Occasional screams of those grieving pierced through the commotion.

Anita Devi, from the central city of Jhansi, said she had spent the entire morning looking for her husband.

“He needs his medicines but they are with me. When the crush happened, I lost hold of his hand and he was gone in a blink,” she told the BBC.

“It’s been so many hours but I can’t find him. This year there are so many lost-and-found centres that I don’t know where he might have gone. I am praying hard that he is alive and safe.”

Crowd crushes are common in India where there is frequent overcrowding at religious events, festivals and public spaces. Last year, more than 120 people were killed in Hathras district, also in Uttar Pradesh, during a religious gathering.

Officials say the situation at the Kumbh Mela is now under control. But Indian opposition leaders have criticised the government over the crush.

“Mismanagement, mismanagement and administration’s special focus on VIP movement instead of common devotees are responsible for this tragic incident,” Rahul Gandhi, opposition leader in parliament, said in a post on X, calling the incident “extremely sad”.

Some pilgrims also blamed authorities for the disaster.

Ayesha Mishra questioned why there was no police presence where the crush happened.

“They were standing towards the end of the festival venue, while so many of us got crushed in the middle,” she said.

“We do not want to take a holy dip like this,” she added. “The government should just ask people to stay home at this point.”