Tragedy strikes Godavari Pushkaram, 27 dead in stampede

Twenty seven pilgrims, 23 of them women, died in a stampede today on the banks of the Godavari river in Andhra Pradesh on the first day of a major religious festival Godavari Pushkaram.
Pilgrims surged towards one of the gates that allows access to the river banks and a group of women slipped causing the stampede, said officials.
The incident took place between 7.30 am and 8 am on the opening day of the 12-day event after gates were opened for people to take holy dip in the Godavari river.
"We have received crowd of more than the capacity of the ghat here which is about 15,000 whereas we today had about 50,000 outside the Ghat. There was pushing and pulling between the crowd coming out of the Ghat and those entering," East Godavari Collector Arun Kumar said.

The stampede happened soon after Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and his family members left the place after taking holy dip in the river.
Out of several Pushkar Ghats in the East Godavari district, people in particular had thronged in tens of thousands to this place, apparently taken in by publicity blitzkrieg that it is the "most holiest" among them, officials said.

They said that Rajahmundry town was highlighted in all advertisements on Pushkaram, while other areas where the river flows were reportedly not given "due importance" leading to people converging here, largely giving a go-bye to other ghats.
Officials also said the government setting a Muhurtham (auspicious time) at 6.26 am today for the commencement of Pushkaram prompted people to reach the spot at this hour to take a dip.

Andhra Pradesh DGP, J V Ramudu, said 27 people, including 23 women, lost their lives in the incident which officials said also left 25-30 people injured.
According to officials, the women were in the age group of 50-60. Most of the victims had been waiting since early hours.
"Some of them were also tired as they had travelled long distances to reach here and there is also a possibility they might have died due to suffocation," Rajahmundry Sub-Collector Vijay Ramaraju said.
"There was a sudden rush on this particular ghat, despite several ghats being earmarked for the convenience of the devotees within the vicinity. It may be that they had a feeling that this particular ghat (Pushkar ghat where the incident happened) is the holy one," DGP Ramudu told PTI adding, there was a lot of jostling and pushing among the large crowd.