As many as 31 persons were injured, 12 of them seriously, in a stampede at Malikappuram in the Sabarimala Sannidhanam on the eve of the annual Mandalam festival on Sunday.
The stampede occurred immediately after the deeparadhana at the hill shrine around 6.40 p.m. when an iron railing collapsed as a huge crowd on the northern side of the lower Tirumuttom (Ayyappa temple premises) near Malikappuram that was waiting for about seven hours to enter the Tirumuttom through the Northern Gate surged forward.
An eyewitness told The Hindu that the several hundred pilgrims were waiting on the northern side of the lower Tirumuttom since 12 noon. The police had blocked access by stretching a rope between the iron railings of the barricade. The tragedy struck when the iron railings collapsed under the weight of the crowd.
Personnel from the police, the Rapid Action Force and the National Disaster Response Force and volunteers of the Akhila Bharatha Ayyappa Seva Sangom (ABASS) rushed to rescue the pilgrims trapped in the stampede.
The injured were rushed to the nearby Sannidhanam Government Hospital for first-aid before being shifted to Pampa in the foothills.
An Emergency Rescue Vehicle was pressed into service to shift those critically injured .
Dr. Sureshbabu, Nodal Officer at Sabarimala, told The Hindu that eight pilgrims who sustained head injuries were referred to the Government Hospital at Kottayam.
The injured were from Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Telangana, he said.
Medical team rushed
A team of doctors from the Kottayam Medical Medical College Hospital has reached Pampa to assist the medical team.
This is the second stampede at Sabarimala on the eve of the Mandalam festival.
One person was killed and many were injured in a stampede at Saramkuthi in 2000.
