 More than 300 people have died after being crushed in a stampede involving thousands of Hindus fleeing fires during a pilgrimage to a temple in western India. Another 200 were injured in Tuesday's incident, which happened on a narrow staircase leading to the hilltop temple in the village of Wai, about 250km south of Bombay, according to police superintendent Chandrakant Kumbhar. Kumbhar said devotees set fire to shops in the crowded passageway after they heard rumours that some pilgrims had slipped on the temple floor and were trampled to death by others who were propelled forward by the mass of people behind them.
| Oh, that was a reasonable reaction... |
"When their relatives, who were still climbing the stairs, heard the news, they became angry and set fire to some shops," Kumbhar said. "About 200 pilgrims have been killed and an equal number of people have been injured." The dead were mostly women, he said. |