New Delhi, July 28 (EFE).- At least two people died and another 29 were injured on Monday after a stampede during a religious event in northern India, local authorities reported.
“Ten people were brought to Trivediganj CHC, of which two were declared brought dead. The remaining are stable and being treated,” Awadhesh Kumar Yadav, chief medical officer of Barabanki district in the state of Uttar Pradesh, told the media.
According to the administration, a group of monkeys damaged an electrical cable that fell on metal structures inside the temple, generating shocks that caused panic among devotees and triggered the stampede, district magistrate Shashank Tripathi said.
The stampede took place at the Awsaneshwar Mahadev temple in the Haidergarh area of the Barabanki district, where a crowd of devotees was participating in a religious ceremony during the holy month of Sawan, dedicated to the god Shiva.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath expressed his condolences to the families of the victims and said that all necessary care was being provided to the injured.
The chief minister’s office said in a post on X that he had “directed the district administration officials to provide proper treatment to the injured and speed up the relief work.”
The incident occurred a day after another stampede claimed the lives of at least six people and left around 30 injured at another temple in the neighboring state of Uttarakhand, which authorities also said may have been triggered by rumors of an electrical current.
Stampedes are common in India, especially during religious festivals and pilgrimages due to the large number of people present and inadequate crowd management.
On June 29, three people died in a stampede near a temple in eastern India.
In January, a stampede that left at least 30 dead and another 60 injured overshadowed the Kumbh Mela celebrations in the north of the country, one of the largest religious events in the world. EFE
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