"There was chaos... There was no space to even keep our feet. I had many people falling over me"
Even as the State authorities on Monday failed to provide details of Sunday’s stampede at the Allahabad railway station that claimed 36 lives, those who were caught in the stampede blamed it on police action and mismanagement. According to some, there were two stampedes — one at 6.30 p.m. and another at 8.40 p.m.
Manorama Devi, who suffered a fracture in her abdomen in the first stampede at platform no. 1, said, barring one all the passages were blocked and people were jostling for space. “There was chaos. Some people were going up while others were coming down. Only one bridge was open. There was no space to even keep our feet. I had many people falling over me.”
Another eyewitness said the injured and the dead bodies were kept in an office at the station for three hours till help arrived. “The officials told us they were helpless as most of the gates and bridges were closed. I saw three people die in front of me, but no help arrived,” she said. A senior North Central Railway official said due to heavy traffic bodies were removed and the injured rushed to the hospital only after a few hours. The city, which was teeming with lakhs of pilgrims returning after a dip at the Maha Kumbh Mela, had exhausted all three-tiers of its parking space.
Relatives of the victims say that many lives could have been saved if the injured were provided immediate relief.
The parents of eight-year-old Muskan said she died of injuries as no help reached them for three hours. Also, for more than two hours around 10 bodies wrapped in towels and white cloth were lying on the platform unattended, eyewitnesses said.
Second stampede
Sudhir Kumar, 45, a teacher from Delhi says a late announcement around 8.40 p.m. about the arrival of a train caused people to rush in opposite directions. “We had a reservation in Prayag Raj Mail but when we reached platform no. 6 there was no information on the timing of the train. Everyone was impatient. People were also waiting for another train and soon the crowd started piling up. Then we heard that the train would not come to platform no. 6 but platform no. 1. We started going up the stairs but there was no space to move. It was so packed. I shouted to the police to stop people from coming but the crowd just continued to pile up.”
Eyewitnesses alleged that the police used force and lathi-charged people to prevent them from crossing over to the other platform. No help reached the spot for a couple of hours. However, Divisional Railway manager Harindar Rao said the police were only trying to regulate the movement of the crowd by asking the pilgrims to stand in line at the platforms.
The eyewitnesses also blamed the lack of medical help at the station. “There was only one stretcher for 100 people and the ambulance was one kilometre away. Why were there no facilities to reach the nearest hospital? People were dying and we could see no doctors. We are grateful to the scouts, who were trying to revive us,” said a victim.
According to reports, only a single doctor was available on the spot at the time. Most of the victims were from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The injured, three of whom are in serious condition, were admitted to various hospitals here. Post-mortem of 22 bodies were conducted and 19 bodies handed over to the relatives, officials said. However, 14 bodies are still unidentified.
The Uttar Pradesh government has called for an enquiry into the incident and sanctioned an ex-gratia sum of Rs. 5 lakh to the kin of each of the devotees. The Central government has also announced an ex-gratia compensation of Rs. 5 lakh to the next of kin of those killed, and Rs. 1 lakh each to those injured seriously.
Allahabad MP Reoti Raman Singh visited the hospital and met the injured on Monday.
Some of the comments below cannot be from an Indian or they don't know India. They are talking nonsense when lecturing etiquette and crowd behaviour. It is clear that there was hardly any space to stand properly. In that you make last minute change to plateform on which a particular scheduled to arrive (though this is normal on any given day, this should have been avoided on this particular day). There was a single open path used by incoming and outgoing passengers and worse you do a lathicharge. The only place they could have had disperse following lathicharge was on each other. Thats exactly what happended. If the authorities knew there was overcrowding, why didn't they stop incoming and puzzle of general tickets which is like "akshay patra"(never ending). Why were they continue to give 'infinte' tickets.
The authorities expected a huge crowd. It was given. Even a common man knew this. The crowd management is not only letting people assemble at one place in large numbr..
What we have not seen we cannot visualize happening in a gathering of
30 Million People.
These numbers are just unimaginable and also unmanagable.
I had personally seen a stampede at the Firozabad Railway Station
when the Train carrying the Urns of late Pandit Nehru was to pass
by. The power of sheer numbers broke all cordons and hell broke loose.
Our system creates crowds to exploit them ; scenes like this will
be there untill the mass flow of humanity is not controlled from the
very starting points of origination. The crowds have to be controlled and made into identifiable units from the very starting points , may be at vill , teh , taluka or at the Distt level.
Not every one can be allowed to attend.Ganga at Allahabad does not get any pure then what it is from the start to the finish. Not all
three crores can reasonably bathe in that area so unnecessarily sanctified.
No Adm in the world can control such a massive movement of crowd.
I compliment Allahabad adm
What a sad news! Alas, again innocent lives have been wasted, mainly because of ill-organisation and carelessness.
My heartfelt prayers are with those who have left this world as well as the member of the deceased.
Some time it's the organisation but many a time it's we who cannot be patient.
I live in Birmingham, here when a child starts school, they are taken to all such facilities and taught how to get and remain in line with patience.
I really don't know if taking a dip in a river will clean the sins we make, but its pathetic that we die of a stampede visiting a place. The authorities should have tackled the crowd by arranging more transportation services. Unless this happened on a regular day, there is no excuse for either the government officials or the railways authorities. What's the rush for? Isn't there something like waiting in line or in a queue? No death is worth catching a train or a bus. Pathetic!!! We all want to be first in everything and little or no consideration is given to others who are in our way in being first.
It is all fault of Akhilesh government.He clearly fail to provide administrative support to pilgrims.Once it was expected that such accident may took place as it happening in most of such events,he should arrange good administration atleast at public places like Railway and bus station.Same time it is very clear that railway authority is main culprit who created such scene by mindless decision to change platform for train where crores of passanger likely to come.It is not first or last lesson for government who merely washing hand by giving lakhs of rupees from tax payer account.
It is very unfortunate that 36 people died because of a weak over bridge on Allahabad platform .Immediate action should be taken so that this type of pathetic incident should not take place in future .Mr. Akhilesh.............Time to take action.
On 10th feb 2013 ;Kumbh mela was the most critical issue in
India...related to almost three percent of population of India(more than
many states of India). chief minister and railway ministers should be
available in Allahabad for full day to insure proper arrangement..Can
anybody ask them what is more important issue they were handling on that
day..
Journey, especially by train, and participation in a big cultural or religious function have become unadvisable now. For journey by train, you need to plan two to three months in advance. If luck favours, you get reservation but hold, you are not sure still if the space reserved will indeed be available - others may be sharing it (mostly compelled to undertake an unplanned journeys for personal reasons). Tickets are always sold in excess of the seats available. Ministers have come and gone. Rail journey continued to be increasingly uncomfortable with the increase in population. Action on seats' supply-demand imbalance was never real. The arrangements for handling the gathering of the size of Kumbh Mela are largely left to some rich individuals. Who cares for the hapless masses? Very few politicians even understand the significance of Kumbh Snan after the advent of secularism. The new set of rulers eyes the booty not the duty. This stampede may well be a shadow for 2014 event!
This is an unfortunate event for all, but people are not leaving a
chance of playing the politics on this issue also, as far as there will
remain no any code of conduct for commuters, there always will be a
chance of chaos.
Railway Authority should take the onus of this mishap, because they are very well aware of the seasonal massive crowd at the station. Moreover, maintenance of the railway property falls under the railway ministry. They should check if there house is in order to bear inflow and outflow of people, such repair of footbridge and others facilities for the public should be fixed then and there, not at the 9th hour when you situation is out of control. When the situation was delicate lath charge was not the right solution to discipline the crowd. We people are not of same level, until we educate our citizen completely about the facilities, if authorities fails to comply with every norms of their institution, then they have to face the brunt of it. The ex-gratia of lakhs of money could have been utilized for fixing the footbridge, but our Government always fails to understand that a life of it people cannot be compensated with money.
Very sad to see always that Government immediately announce for a
compensation amount and forget the pain of the families. The numbers
were huge and it is well known in advance. We are 60 year old democracy,
Government should find the permanent solution .
I think it is absolutely a personal etiquette to carry oneself in a public gathering. We should not forget that these victims are pilgrims. Bhakti (spirituality) should direct people to the path of peace not to be aggressive and unstable. Once you fall, you fall like a house of cards. Govt. cannot run behind people to teach them ethics, it should be innate. What we see here is a huge failure of ethics. There are many recent incidents including the 2008 stampede in Amarnath, then in Sabarimala and we must learn from the past. My deepest condolences for all the victims.
A "last minute" platform change announcement, lack of regulation by
Police of use of the foot bridge, and Herd Behaviour by the passengers
are all component factors that led to this tragedy. None of these can
be considered "unusual" in India, and hence we will see a repeat in
time. We do not execute sensible plans, we do not act premptorily to
avoid catastrophe, and we are not a very disciplined people in a crowd.
Such things do happen all over the world, but mainly where Rock Music
crowds run wild. Otherwise, this is a very typical "indian" occurance.
Is it time to stop these "Religious" mob events like the Kumbh Mela as
public safety hazzards, or should we be stoic and fataliustic and
accept all such tragedy as Indian Karma? How do we explain to the world
that there was no medical help for up to two hours after the tragic
situation erupted, and that bodies of the dead and injured lay where
they fell until "security forces could arrive."
Is there something wrong with us?
The responsible officers and government employees must be charged for murders of the dead. Such negligence must not be allowed to go unpunished. It is high time, we Indians start caring and accounting for each Indian being. THIS IS NOT AN ACCIDENT BUT FAILURE OF DUTY.
It is a matter of concern as to how quick our emergency services are.I
have participated in mock drills and I know for one that ,they are
nowhere close to real scenarios.Many of our essential services need to
be trained to become professionals and experts.Can we for once count
how many designated experts are there at disposal for every
emergencies in different states/districts of India.It is of prime
concern that proper emphasis be laid on training policemen ,ambulance
drivers ,doctors/nurses ,firemen ,traffic regulators etc for such
situations.A list of NGO volunteers should be available with the local
collectors ,DSPs and also a contingency evacuation plan should be
available ,professional vetted at disposal.
We are spending crores and crores in a system which has a huge void.I
also request the editor to come up with a detailed study about the
readiness of different parts of the country to face emergencies and
also evolve proper metrics to evaluate such capacity.
The blame will lie squarely on SP Government having failed in all
frontiers. The people management is not railway job although they could
have stopped had they been efficient. Akhilesh ,Mulayem , Ramgopal and
the other members of this family business should have personally
supervised such a phenomenal gathering of pilgrims, but they are too
busy in appeasing the Maulabis. This will recoil very harshly in the
next general election. The survey already says two third will lose their
deposits.
Please value human life. It is not the case that the govt. is not having money to spend on safety but the whole system is badly managed.
Total 36 died and ex-gratia of Rs 5 Lakhs announced.. means in total 180 Lakhs. I challange that in less money a safety meausure was possible than the total money of ex-gratia. Govt. is able to spend more money after the death of any person but not ready to spend less for peoples' safety.
This is the best example of Badly managed system.
It is time that the people who work in the railways across the country realise the value of the innocent lives lost in incidents like this, which could be prevented by giving utmost importance to the safety of the users >of railway stations and the services provided by them.
Gathering of people on any occasion should be properly and adequately safeguarded on the all preventive norms. People should also analyse the need and outcome of congregation with heavy number at a time when different governments have failed to facilitate them. This event at Maha Kumbh, Allahabad is repetition of the same circumstances in Chhat pooja, at Patna. It is a time of introspection for both government and people
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