On 10 February 2013, during the Hindu festival Kumbh Mela, a stampede broke out at the train station in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, India, killing 36 people and injuring at least 39.

Set 1.

1. View of the crowd before the stampede.
2. Shortly after the stampede.
5. Is that a white dude on the far right?
According to initial reports, the stampede broke out after a railing on a footbridge collapsed at the Allahabad railway station. Eyewitnesses, however, said that the stampede was triggered after the railway police charged at the crowd with wooden sticks in order to control the huge rush at the station. 36 people were killed by the crush of people, including 26 women, 9 men, and an eight-year-old girl who died after waiting almost two hours for help. At least 39 people were injured in addition.
Due to the huge number of attendees stampedes are relatively common during Kumbh Mela festivals. The 1954 Kumbh Mela stampede was the deadliest since India's independence, with an estimated 1,000 deaths. The 2003 Kumbh Mela stampede killed 39 people in the city of Nashik, and seven were killed during the 2010 Kumbh Mela in Haridwar.

Kumbh Mela is a major Hindu religious festival that is held every 3 years in 4 rotating places. The 2013 event is considered a Maha Kumbh Mela, which comes around only once every 144 years. It lasts 55 days and is expected to be attended by 100 million pilgrims, making it the largest temporary gathering of people in the world. A temporary city covering an area larger than Athens was set up to accommodate the crowds. Sunday, 10 February was considered the most auspicious day and 30 million people descended to Allahabad to bathe at the confluence of the Yamuna and the Ganges rivers.
Feb. 10, 2013, Allahabad, India:

Thousands of Hindu pilgrims, who had just finished attending the Maha Kumbh Mela of 2013, which comes around only once every 144 years, were filling the Allahabad railway station for their train ride home when a stampede occurred. Some witnesses reported that part of an overhead foot-bridge on two platforms had collapsed while others stated that while they were moving to one platform police blocked their passage and forced them back the way they had come, causing a crushing of the densely packed throng of people in the confusion. A stampede ensued which killed a total of 39 people, mostly women, and with many were injured.

There are four types of Kumbh Mela that take place and the Maha is the fourth, drawng millions of pilgrims. The 2013 event, after which the deadly stampede occurred, was the largest religious gathering in the history of humanity; drawing an attendance of an estimated 120 million people, all drawn by the opportunity to take a dip in the Ganges River. Hindu lore says that when the Moon and Jupiter align, the Ganges and Yamuna are joined by a mystical river, the Saraswati, bearing the divine nectar of immortality.



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