The panic occurred around 3 a.m. (10:30 p.m. Friday Lisbon time) on the way to the Mata Vaishno Devi shrine, one of the most revered Hindu sites in northern India.
“People stumbled over each other. It was difficult to know which leg or arm got entangled, with whom, ”said a witness, who identified himself as Ravinder, by telephone with AFP.
“I helped collect eight bodies when the ambulance arrived, about half an hour later. I am lucky to be alive, but I still shiver when I remember what I saw, ”he added.
There are thousands of shrines in the cities and villages of India, mostly Hindu, as well as in remote places in the Himalayas or in the jungle of the south.
Some are important pilgrimage sites, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government has invested heavily in improving access infrastructure.
Before the covid-19 pandemic, 100,000 devotees walked a steep path to a narrow cave that houses the Vaishno Devi temple.
The number was reduced to 25,000, but eyewitnesses and the media indicated that during Saturday’s tragedy, this number was exceeded several times. According to some versions, there was a quarrel between two believers before the crush.
Rescue work began immediately and the wounded, some in critical condition, were transferred to nearby hospitals.
Images circulating on social media show small ambulances arriving at hospitals overnight.
The temple, open 24 hours a day, is located in the Katra hills, about 60 km from the city of Jammu.
Access to the site was suspended after the crush, although it was later reopened.
People often travel to the nearby town of Katra and walk 15 km to the cave entrance, where they usually have to wait several hours to enter. Some people go on horseback, there is a helicopter.
Witness Ravinder said that the tragedy took place at the point where the crowd descending from the sanctuary met those rising.
He estimated that there were at least 100,000 people at the height of the unrest. “Nobody looked through the registration documents of believers. I have been there several times, but have never seen such a group of people, ”he assured.
“It was then that some managed to lift the corpse with their hands so that people could see (what was happening), and they made room to remove the bodies,” he said.
“Extremely saddened by the loss of life,” Prime Minister Modi said on Twitter, adding that he is in contact with local authorities. In turn, Minister Jitendra Singh, who holds several positions in the executive branch, announced that he would go to the site to assess the situation.
