Grim relatives searched through the night over rows of bodies for family members among the 145 people killed in a stampede at a remote mountaintop Hindu temple.
By dawn yesterday, only 12 bodies remained unclaimed at the hospital in Anandpur Sahib, a town near the temple where Sunday’s disaster occurred. Volunteer workers from nearby temples helped relatives load the victims onto vehicles to be taken home for cremation.
Authorities announced that an investigation would be launched into the disaster and offered compensation to families of the victims.
Police said 145 people, many of them women and children, were killed and 37 injured after rumors of a landslide caused thousands of panicked pilgrims to stampede on Sunday along the narrow path leading to the Naina Devi Temple in the foothills of the Himalayas.
An estimated 25,000 people were on the mountain at the time to celebrate Shravan Navratras, a nine-day festival that honors the Hindu goddess Shakrti, or divine mother.
Pilgrims already at the temple began running down the path, where they collided with devotees winding their way up.
With a concrete wall on one side and a precipice on the other, there was nowhere to escape and they were crushed. At one point, a guard rail broke and dozens of people fell to their deaths.
In many cases families lost several members.
Mukesh Chabba went to the temple with 11 other family members to celebrate the recent birth of his son. Only five survived.
The 31-year-old farmer lost both his parents, his wife, his two-year-old daughter, his brother and sister-in-law and their 17-year-old daughter.
“There was a lot of shouting and pushing. People fell down and could not get up. They just suffocated,” he said.
He saved his infant son by passing him to a young man who was on a ledge above the main path, he said.
Survivors said police were partly to blame for the disaster.
“The police did not allow people to step back. Meanwhile, people started coming down from above shouting go back, go back,” said Ramesh Kumar Saini, who was at the temple.
“Since the police did not allow the people to go back, this tragedy happened,” he said.
The result was horrific.
Bodies of the devotees — many dressed in brightly colored holiday clothes — carpeted the path, intertwined with flattened iron railings. Many still held the flowers and food they planned to offer at the temple.
Visiting the scene, Himachal Pradesh state Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhuma announced an investigation into the cause of the disaster and said 100,000 rupees (US$2,380) would be paid to the families of each victim.
Deadly stampedes are a relatively common occurrence at temples in India, where large crowds — sometimes hundreds of thousands of people — congregate in small areas lacking facilities to control big gatherings.
Nevertheless, many of the faithful were undeterred after the disaster. By yesterday morning, hundreds of pilgrims had resumed their trek up the mountain to give offerings to the goddess.
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