Dozens Feared Dead in Stampede at Huge Hindu Festival in India
Many people were feared to have been killed 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, hundreds of people who were sleeping on the river banks were trampled and a barrier broke, government officials said. Others were trying to escape after taking bathing, adding to the chaos.
Videos and photos from the scene showed people on the ground, their bodies and faces covered, and emergency personnel carrying people away on stretchers and into ambulances. Festival organizers had yet to release any casualty figures, but local news reports suggested that dozens had died.
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.
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 that officials said owed to high temperatures and overcrowding.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/28/world...tival.html
Many people were feared to have been killed 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, hundreds of people who were sleeping on the river banks were trampled and a barrier broke, government officials said. Others were trying to escape after taking bathing, adding to the chaos.
Videos and photos from the scene showed people on the ground, their bodies and faces covered, and emergency personnel carrying people away on stretchers and into ambulances. Festival organizers had yet to release any casualty figures, but local news reports suggested that dozens had died.
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.
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 that officials said owed to high temperatures and overcrowding.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/28/world...tival.html
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
