World | India
Relatives search for family members at India stampede site
Relatives searched through the night over rows of bodies for family members among the 145 people killed in a deadly stampede at a remote mountaintop Hindu temple.
- Agencies
- Published: 10:12 August 4, 2008
- Image Credit: EPA
- Jasbir Kaur (centre), a victim of the stampede, is helped by her relatives at the local hospital in northern Indian town of Anandpur Sahib on Monday.
Anandpur Sahib: Relatives searched through the night over rows of bodies for family members among the 145 people killed in a deadly stampede at a remote Hindu temple.
Meanwhile, authorities on Monday ordered an investigation into possible organisational lapses that led to the stampede and offered compensation to families of the victims.
In many cases, families lost several members, killed together as they went to the Naina Devi Temple in the foothills of the Himalayas to celebrate Shravan Navratras, a nine-day festival that honors the Hindu goddess Shakrti.
By dawn on Monday, only 12 bodies remained unidentified at the hospital in Anandpur Sahib, a town near the temple where Sunday's disaster occurred.
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.
Pilgrims already at the temple began running down the narrow path leading from the peak. There, they collided with devotees winding their way up.
Witnesses told police how security officials stood helplessly as thousands ran down the slope, breaking barricades and railings.
"No one from the police or administration was helping and it was just people helping each other in the pouring rain," Bala said.
Visiting the scene, Himachal Pradesh state Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhuma said an investigation into the cause of the disaster would be set up and said compensation of 100,000 rupees would be paid to the families of each victim.
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