Panic on the Kumbh Mela in India, Ambulances get stuck in the crowds

The night fills with the sound of sirens. At the dawn, from a rickety lookout, which is made up of cracking chipboard, you can see how three ambulances are completely detained in the crowd. From the masses, the sound of hundreds of thousands of voices from calling, urgent people, police flutes and broadcasting messages from speakers rises. In the air, drones, which have already been used by the organization in recent days, swarm up to get human flows into the picture of the Kumbh Mela, the largest religious Hindu festival in the world. Hindus believe that sins can be washed in the Ganges during the ‘Kumbh’.

This year, the festival attracts more visitors than ever through an exceptional position of Jupiter, the Moon and the Stars. This constellation only occurs once every 144 years. Wednesday is a particularly holy day, under a very favorable star. Before sunrise you could see how the first group of holy leaders, sadhoe’s, enters the water of the Ganges. Their bodies, combat maneuvers and painted faces are an important crowd puller during the Kumbh. The authorities of Uttar Pradesh expected to receive ten million believers in advance. The intended total number in 45 days: 400 million.

But shortly after midnight panic would have broken out, possibly because people repress each other on their way to the river bank to welcome the Sadhoe’s. According to eyewitnesses, people who were already on the banks tried to escape the influx of new visitors who arrived during the night. Others report that pilgrims had put themselves to sleep on the banks, because of the crowds built up since the beginning of this week, so that they could no longer reach their sleeping tent. Victims would have been oppressed or drowned.

Pilgrims are stuck on a pontoon bridge after panic broke out on the Kumbh Mela in India, the largest religious festival in the world. Photo: Every scholiers/getty images

Five kilometers walk

Also completely at the entrance of the festival site, from where pilgrims still have to walk at least five kilometers to the bank, the police on horseback had to intervene to streamline the crowds of crowds. Dozens of deaths have probably fallen. Authorities of the Indian state Uttar Pradesh, where the festival takes place every few years, did not provide any information about the victims or the size of the disaster on Wednesday morning.

Instead of leaving their camps and to precede the believers in the Ganges, most Sadhoe’s decide to stay away from the joint seaside resort at dawn. They withdraw over the Ponton bridges that were built over the river. The leaders of the religious orders have announced the authorities that there will be no procession today and that the Heilenmen will not perform any rides in the early morning.

“The Sadhoe’s decide for themselves whether they still want to come,” says Gaultam Singh, member of the Rapid Response Force That is part of the 50,000 security people who, according to the authorities, were deployed at the festival. He stands against the bright yellow fence that blocks the crossing to the Akhara’s. “The washing is their most important ritual. If they determine that it is not safe, then they cannot do that. They need their time in the water. ” The Sadhoe’s will be very upset, thinks the young man who is usually stationed elsewhere in Utter Pradesh. Since November he has been in Prayagraj, where the safety people trained for this festival. “But so much crowdmillions of people, we can’t really start against that, “he says. Even now that the Heiljans stay away, the stream of pilgrims grows continuously.

Streets closed for VIPS

From the beginning of this week, access roads were closed for most traffic from the train station of the city of Prayagraj. Pilgrims had to travel the kilometers to the tent camps on foot – if they were not diverted by blockages. Present police personnel could hardly explain such “crowd control”. For the passage of VIPS, streets were closed to the foot people: the white SUVs of Bollywood stars and the leaders of government party BJP – Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his right hand in Up Yogi Adityanath and Minister of the Interior Amit Shah – were able to drive directly to the water.

On Wednesday, the so -called swollen crowds flooded any form of a preconceived plan.

The first figures that are announced from the organization to the collected press, when the sun is already two hours and slowly a hole is burning in the thick layers of fog, ash and dust: “Number of bathers from 6 a.m. . Number of bathers since the start of the event: rang to more than 190 million. ” Two hours later, the number of believers who have immersed themselves in the purifying water is already adjusted upstairs by ten million. In the WhatsApp group that was specially founded especially for communication with present media, the ever-formulated requests to accept the happening and giving an impression of the cases and giving an impression. Fifteen people are reported in Indian media – a number that will almost certainly have to be adjusted up during the day.

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