The sacred hill temple of Lord Venkateswara wilted under the impact of heavy crowds on Friday and Saturday. The town, which had been registering teeming crowds for the past 10 days, saw thousands of pilgrims descend on it on foot even before the break of dawn.
While more than 40,000 pilgrims were believed to have trekked up to the town on Friday, the numbers were expected to inflate on Saturday with both the trekking routes leading to the town experiencing relentless flow of people.
While the waiting time for the pilgrims in the ordinary darshan lines stretched beyond 25 hours, it took more than 15 hours for those reaching on foot. Both the massive Vaikuntam queue complexes were full to their capacity.
The darshan lines spiralled around the sprawling Narayanagiri gardens and spilled over to the open top galleries around the mada streets encircling the sacred shrine.
The crowds threw all the arrangements out of gear and faced severe difficulties.
Chaos reigned at various cottage allotment counters. While the counters remained mobbed by the devout, the staff abandoned the counters fearing the ire of the pilgrims owing to poor registrations in the vacancy positions.
Thousands of pilgrims returned to their native destinations without the darshan of the Lord.
