At least 18 people died during a stampede at a railway station in India's capital when surging crowds scrambled to catch trains to the world's largest religious gathering, officials and reports said.
The Kumbh Mela attracts tens of millions of Hindu faithful every 12 years to the northern city of Prayagraj, and has a history of crowd-related disasters - including one last month, when at least 30 people died in another stampede at the holy confluence of the Ganges, Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati rivers.
The rush at the train station in New Delhi appeared to break out yesterday as crowds struggled to board trains for the ongoing event, which will end on 26 February.
Those dead were mostly women and children.
"I have been working as a coolie since 1981, but I never saw a crowd like this before," the Times of India newspaper quoted a porter at the railway station as saying.
"People started colliding and fell on the escalator and stairs" when the platform for a special train departing for Prayagraj was suddenly shifted, the porter said.
Distressed by the stampede at New Delhi Railway Station. My thoughts are with all those who have lost their loved ones. I pray that the injured have a speedy recovery. The authorities are assisting all those who have been affected by this stampede.
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) February 15, 2025
Railways minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said a "high-level inquiry" had been ordered into the causes of the accident.
Mr Vaishnaw said additional special trains were being run from New Delhi to clear the rush of devotees.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was "distressed" by the stampede.
"My thoughts are with all those who have lost their loved ones. I pray that the injured have a speedy recovery," he wrote on X.
The governor of the capital territory Delhi, Vinai Kumar Saxena said disaster management personnel had been told to deploy and "all hospitals are in readiness to address related emergencies."
The six-week Kumbh Mela is the single biggest milestone on the Hindu religious calendar, and officials said around 500 million devotees have already visited the festival since it began last month.
More than 400 people died after they were trampled or drowned on a single day of the festival in 1954, one of the largest tolls in a crowd-related disaster globally.
Another 36 people were crushed to death in 2013, the last time the festival was staged in Prayagraj.
