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What we know so far
Details of what has happened are still trickling in. Here’s what we know so far about the deadly crushes that have taken place at the Kumbh Mela, the world’s largest religious festival:
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Reports of the death toll in Prayagraj, the city where the Hindu festival is taking place, have varied. The government has yet to give an official toll but local officials have said 38 are dead. One doctor told AFP 15 people had died.
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It appears that more than one crush took place, although details are unclear. The initial crush appears to have taken place at the bank of the sangam, the holy confluence of three rivers, when people trying to bathe began falling over people who were sitting or lying by the river. People trying to escape were then caught in another crush.
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Religious leaders have called on pilgrims to avoid heading to the sangam today and to take baths instead at other points along the river.
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The akharas, or sects of sadhus (holy people), have officially cancelled their bathing today which was due to start around 4am.
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Images from the site showed scenes of chaos, with people stumbling over heaps of belongings as they tried to leave and security forces struggling to manage large crowds. Images also showed bodies lying on the ground.
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People were still searching for loved ones lost in the crush hours later, gathering at the missing persons tent and the hospital where the dead and injured were taken.
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Authorities had expected a record 100 million people to take a holy dip on Wednesday, considered the most auspicious day due to a rare alignment of celestial bodies after 144 years.
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The Hindu festival has already seen gigantic daily crowds, with nearly 148 million people attending since it began two weeks ago.
Key events
Hannah Ellis-Petersen
Relatives sat outside the hospital where the dead and injured were brought.
Narayan Singh Lodhi, 50, from Madhya Pradesh said that his sister-in-law, Hukam Bhai Lodhi, had died in the crush:
She has three children. When it happened we were very close to the river and there was a big push. People from opposite directions started going towards each other and collided and then started pushing each other, trying to find their way out.
I saw people falling to the ground and shouting, and people started treading on each other. I tried to rescue as many people as possible but I could only get hold of my wife and another woman. I dragged them out. I saw around 20 bodies who were clearly dead on the floor who had been crushed and others were lying there injured crying out for help.
No one came to rescue the injured and pick up the bodies for at least an hour.
A bit more on the background to the festival, courtesy of an earlier piece by our correspondent Hannah Ellis-Petersen:
In the buildup to the festival, which will continue till 26 February, fervent colourful processions marked the arrival of the 13 akharas, the ancient monastic sects of warrior sadhus who travel from across the country to participate in the spectacle.
There has historically been fierce competition and bloodshed between the akharas, whose members have fought violently on many occasions and died in their thousands over who gets to take part in the holy bathing ritual first.
The scale and grandeur of this year’s festivities is expected to exceed all previous iterations, in a nod to the Kumbh Mela’s religious but also political significance. This is seen to have become more overt under the current Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) government, which rules in the centre of the country and in Uttar Pradesh.
Some more reporting from the scene courtesy of Reuters:
Video and photographs after the crush showed bodies being stretched away, people sitting on the ground crying, while others stepped over a carpet of discarded belongings left by people as they tried to escape the stampede.
A Reuters witness saw several dead bodies as he followed dozens of ambulances rushing towards the river bank where the incident occurred.
Officials said an initial crush which occurred around 1 am local time was “not serious”, but its cause was unclear.
However, devotees trying to escape it were caught in another crush at an exit. They then returned towards the pontoon bridges looking for another way out only to find it had been closed by authorities.
Scenes of desperation as people search for loved ones
Hannah Ellis-Petersen
There were scenes of desperation at the missing persons tent where relatives of those missing in the crowd crush had gathered.
Manoj Kumar Paswan, 45, from Uttar Pradesh said:
My 65 year old aunt Chanara Prajapat is missing. We were near the sangam (confluence of rivers) and wanted to take a bath. But before we could get in the water there was a commotion and people started falling on each other.
We were three people, me, my mother and my aunt. There was a sudden push that was so forceful that I could only hold one person but I lost the hand of my aunt. I somehow managed to grab my mother and we dragged ourselves out.
I went back to look for my aunt but I couldn’t see her anywhere. It was a very painful and scary experience, people around were crying and wailing. There were over a dozen people lying on the floor including children and people were just trampling over them. I am very scared for her.
Saroj Bhagri, 60, from Madhya Pradesh said:
I have lost my eight-year-old grandson son Chahat Bhagri. We arrived yesterday night and went for a bath in the river late in the night. We were sitting near the river afterwards having some food. Suddenly people started pushing and falling over us and trampling us.
I got up and I was holding his hands but then I was pushed and it got wrenched from me when there was a huge crush. When I got up I couldn’t see him and people were running and screaming. When I got up he was gone. There were people lying on the floor.
He is only a little boy, I hope nothing bad has happened to him.
Hindu religious leader Jagatguru Rambhadracharya has appealed to devotees to take their dips at the nearest ghat (steps) on the Ganga river and not to attempt to bathe at the sangam, the confluence of the rivers, the Times of India reports.
The sangam is where the crushes are reported to have taken place in the early hours of this morning. He said:
I appeal to all the devotees that because a large crowd has gathered in Prayagraj today, they should not insist on taking a holy dip only at the Sangam Ghat. As of now, they should not leave their camps and look for their security.
We reported earlier that the akharas, the sects of warrior holymen who come to take part in the bathing rituals, had also cancelled their planned dips this morning.
Some more pics from the scene:
What is the Kumbh Mela?
Hannah Ellis-Petersen
The Kumbh Mela pilgrimage takes place every 12 years and is widely seen as the “festival of festivals” in the Hindu religious calendar in India, attended by a vibrant mix of sadhus or holy men, ascetics, pilgrims and tourists.
This year’s celebration is particularly significant as the Maha or grand Kumbh Mela only takes places every 144 years, marking the 12th Kumbh Mela and a special celestial alignment of the sun, moon and Jupiter.
More than 400 million people, the biggest crowd in its history, were expected to attend this year’s festivities, to be held over 45 days in Prayagraj in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.
Prayagraj is considered particularly holy to Hindus because it is home to Triveni Sangam, the sacred confluence of the Ganges, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati rivers. Over the course of the gathering, there are several shahi san, holy bathing days when the devotees immerse themselves in the waters in the belief it will purify the soul.
Hannah Ellis-Petersen
Wednesday is when the sadhus (holy people), all 13 sects of them, take their holy baths in the Ganges.
The holy bathing time is at 4am and that is around the time that the crowd crushes are thought to have started. It appears three separate crushes took place, as people surged forward, into groups of people who were sitting or lying on the ground on the banks of the river.
Hannah Ellis-Petersen
One paramilitary officer at the scene said: “there were multiple stampedes. there were at least 200 injured and I’d say around 50 dead. I saw them with my own eyes”
The government is still not giving official figures.
One doctor has told the news agency AFP at least 15 people are so far known to have been killed in the crowd crushes.
“At least 15 people have died for now. Others are being treated,” said the doctor in Prayagraj city, speaking on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to talk to media.
Other local officials have said the death toll is even higher. We’ll bring you more updates when we have them.
Hannah Ellis-Petersen
There is now a very heavy police and paramilitary presence but the crowds here are still very thick.
There are shoes and clothes all over the floor at the scene where the crowd crush happened.
Akharas, the holy sects of sadhus (holy people), have officially cancelled their bathing today which was due to start around 4am:
#WATCH | #Mahakumbh | Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh: “Some ‘Devta’ of the Panchayati Mahanirvani went ahead. The situation did not seem to be suitable because of the large crowd. So the Akhara has stopped the ‘Snan’ for the Mahamandaleshwars…” pic.twitter.com/0VnZvW0Tyd
— ANI (@ANI) January 29, 2025
Hannah Ellis-Petersen
The government was making announcements on Tuesday night telling people to get in the water, dip twice and leave the site instantly, calling it a sin to do the third dip because they wanted to get people away from the site so quickly.
Hannah Ellis-Petersen
Despite word spreading of the crushes, large crowds are still heading towards the river to take a dip.
29 January is one of the holiest days of the Kumbh Mela. It’s the day when most people will come to take a holy bath.
Hundreds of millions of people had been expected to come but it seems numbers have exceeded even what the government expected. Over the past 24 hours people have been arriving non-stop.
Pictures are also beginning to emerge from the scene, showing ambulances and injured pilgrims being carried away by rescue workers:
The Times of India reports that ambulances have rushed to the scene in Prayagraj, home to the sacred confluence of the Ganges, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati rivers.
“Some people have got injured and have been hospitalised after a barrier broke at the Sangam [confluence]. We are yet to have the exact count of those injured,” one official was quoted by the paper as saying.
“We came in a batch of 60 people in two buses, we were nine people in the group. Suddenly there was pushing in the crowd, and we got trapped. A lot of us fell down and the crowd went uncontrolled,” one woman told PTI Videos from outside the hospital where the injured were taken.
“There was no chance for escape, there was pushing from all sides.
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of deadly crowd crushes at India’s Kumbh Mela festival.
At least 38 people and as many as 100 are feared to have died in crushes in the early hours of Wednesday, local officials have said, as people went to bathe in a river as part of a Hindu ritual.
People were crushed at about 4am on Wednesday as people surged forward in three separate areas at the confluence of the rivers in the city of Prayagraj which is the holiest place to bathe.
The scale of the tragedy is still unclear but we will bring you the latest news as we have it.