At least 30 people were killed and dozens more were injured early Wednesday after millions of Hindu pilgrims at the Maha Kumbh Mela, a huge festival in the Indian city of Prayagraj, rushed to bathe in holy river waters on what is considered one of the most auspicious dates in the Hindu calendar.
As pilgrims rushed to the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna Rivers, which Hindus consider sacred, thousands of people who were lying or sitting on the river banks were trampled, safety barricades broke, and fences were pulled down, according to government officials and witnesses. Others were trying to escape after bathing, adding to the chaos.
New York Times journalists saw people stretched out on the ground, their bodies and faces covered, and emergency personnel carrying people away on stretchers and into ambulances.
Government officials released casualty figures more than half a day after the stampede happened between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. local time. Yogi Adityanath, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, said on Wednesday evening that he would start a judicial inquiry to find out how, despite heavy precautions, accidents such as these could occur.
Expressing his condolences, Mr. Adityanath said that the state government would give the families of those who had died about $29,000 per victim.
Around three dozen injured pilgrims were being treated in hospitals, said Vaibhav Krishna, a senior police official. The rest left with family members. Among the dead, 25 people had been identified, Mr. Krishna said at a news conference.
In a post on X, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India expressed his condolences to the families of those who lost their lives, and wished those injured a speedy recovery. “The accident in Maha Kumbh is extremely sad,” he wrote.
Political rivals of Mr. Adityanath and the Bharatiya Janata Party, to which both he and Mr. Modi belong, swiftly attacked him for what they called mismanaging the event and engaging in self-promotion.
“Mismanagement, mismanagement and the administration’s special focus on V.I.P. movement instead of common devotees are responsible for this tragic incident,” said Rahul Gandhi of the Congress Party in a post on X. A parade of senior politicians and other public figures, such as the Bollywood star Hema Malini and the Indian guru Baba Ramdev, visited the fair in recent days.
“They were inviting us here to die,” said Ajay Singh, a farmer from the district of Gonda in Uttar Pradesh. “They invited devotees through media, channels, phones, newspapers,” but mismanaged the event, Mr. Singh said.
He had been sleeping on the river banks with his family when the police began pushing people out. Mr. Singh’s mother, aunt and uncle fell down, and they all suffered injuries on their backs and ribs. He said he saw around five dead bodies when he was trapped.
The Kumbh Mela at Prayagraj, one of the world’s biggest religious gatherings, occurs every 12 years. Hindus believe that bathing at the spot where the two holy rivers meet, along with a third mythical river called Sarasvati, will purge them of all sins and help them attain salvation. Because of certain favorable celestial alignments, millions more were expected this year at the event, named the “Maha” or Great Kumbh.
Although there are a number of days considered auspicious for bathing during the event, the period starting late Jan. 28 and heading into the morning of Jan. 29 was seen as especially favorable. Government officials had said they expected around 100 million people to come to the rivers then.
The government of the state of Uttar Pradesh, where Prayagraj is, estimated that around 400 million people in total would attend the six-week festival from all corners of India. To house them all, the government built a temporary city on the banks of the Ganges, with tents, toilets, streets, pontoon bridges and waste management facilities. The government also built temporary bathing platforms using sandbags to make it easier for people to step into the water.
However, most of the temporary pontoon bridges built to connect river banks were cordoned off on Tuesday, according to witnesses, reducing the number of paths that pilgrims could use to get to the confluence and increasing the likelihood of overcrowding. It was unclear why the bridges were closed.
During his speech, Mr. Adityanath had appealed to pilgrims to perform their rituals at the nearest platform rather than pushing to get to the confluence, saying that the day’s significance lay in bathing anywhere along the Ganges.
Mr. Adityanath said Mr. Modi and Amit Shah, the minister of home affairs, had called him several times for updates and offered assistance. Mr. Shah was among those who bathed at the confluence earlier this week.
The danger posed by huge crowds has been a frequent problem at the Kumbh Mela and other religious events. In 2013, 42 people were killed and 45 injured in a crowd crush on a train platform. And in July, more than 100 people were killed and many injured during a prayer meeting organized by a local guru. Officials blamed the casualties on high temperatures and overcrowding.
Government officials became much more organized and focused on the safety and security of pilgrims after the 2013 deaths. This year, the Uttar Pradesh government has employed more sophisticated technology to monitor the inflow and outflow of people so that police personnel on the ground can redirect crowds.
The pilgrims “come gradually and exit simultaneously,” Vijay Vishwas Pant, a senior government official, said on Tuesday. Millions of pilgrims had begun trickling in during the day, but there was no set formula for how the crowds would exit, Mr. Pant said. The goal was to keep pilgrims moving safely, he added. “It is all dynamic.”
Despite the precautions, festival employees and others were encouraging people to go toward the confluence of the rivers, with some even using the public address system to do so. Police officials were unable to clear the bathing areas before more pilgrims rushed in, officials said. As pilgrims tried to escape, they created stampede-like situations elsewhere, according to witness accounts. The Kumbh Mela festival, which is rotated among four cities every three years, is known for the massive number of Hindu devotees who attend, including monks and ascetics from various orders of Hinduism and ordinary pilgrims.
