A Brief History
On February 10, 2013, yet another tragic disaster related to a religious event took place when 42 faithful Hindus were killed and another 45 injured at the train station taking people to the 2013 Prayag Kumbh Mela Festival in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, India.
Digging Deeper
Accounts of the cause of the deadly stampede vary, with one version saying the stampede started when a rail broke on a footbridge, and others claiming the police precipitated the event by using batons to control the unruly crowd of faithful people.
Apparently, the Kumbh Mela Festival is no stranger to deadly stampedes, and the worst so far happened in 1954, when a staggering 1,000 people were crushed!
Sadly, religious gatherings, pilgrimages, and events are not immune to tragedy, and we have previously asked, “Does God Punish the Faithful?” Why do you believe such tragedies happen?
Note: Casualty counts at such disasters vary with the source.
Question for students (and subscribers): Have you ever attended a huge religious gathering? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Mehrotra, Rahul. Kumbh Mela: Mapping the Ephemeral Megacity. Niyogi Books, 2017.
Srinivasan, A.V. Hinduism For Dummies. For Dummies, 2011.
The featured image in this article, a photograph by Seba Della y Sole Bossio from Cordoba, Argentina, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
You can also watch video versions of this article on YouTube.
