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    Monday, February 11, 2013

    30 killed in stampede at Indian rail station near huge Hindu festival




    At least 30 people have been killed and a dozen more injured after a stampede broke out at a train station in the northern Indian city where millions of devout Hindus have gathered for a religious festival, according to a senior government minister.

    Pawan Bansal, India's railway minister, said the stampede took place as massive crowds flooded the Allahabad train station on Sunday evening.
    At least two television channels, NDTV and CNN-IBN, said as many as 30 people were feared dead and 30 others injured.
    News reports said the large crowds caused a section of a footbridge at the station to collapse, leading to the accident.
    Tens of millions of Hindus had gathered for a holy bath in India's sacred Ganga River for the most auspicious day of the world's largest religious festival, Kumbh Mela.

    The population of the city had swollen from its normal 1.2 million to about 40 million on Sunday morning, with about 20 million packed inside the vast sealed-off bathing area on the banks of the river, Ashok Sharma, a government spokesperson, said.
    Amid the crush, the thousands of volunteers on duty and police were urging pilgrims to take one short dip and then leave the freezing waters to make space for others behind them.
    "Aerial surveys by choppers, flying cameras and our estimates put the figure at around 20 million people taking a holy dip in the rivers," Sharma said
    "Public address systems are asking people to leave the [steps] after bathing to avoid a crush."

    Monumental task
    The Maha Kumbh Mela, which began last month and ends in March, takes place every 12 years in Allahabad. Smaller, similar events are held every three years in other locations around India.
    The bathing takes place at an area called Sangam, the confluence of the rivers Ganga and Yamuna and a third mystical waterway called the Saraswati.
    Devotees believe entering the mighty rivers cleanse them of sin and free them from the cycle of rebirth.
    Assorted dreadlocked holymen, seers and self-proclaimed saints from all over the country have assembled for the spectacle that offers a rare glimpse of the dizzying range of Indian spiritualism.
    More than 7,000 policemen had been deployed to oversee the Sunday bathing ritual, along with 30,000 volunteers, police say.
    Management of the festival requires a monumental effort - and a budget of $290m.
    Thousands of buses and special trains were ferrying people to Allahabad where the heavily polluted Yamuna river flows into the Ganga.
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