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video. Up Next. Several people have been killed and dozens more injured in a stampede at the Maha Kumbh Mela festival in northern India.
Image Credit: Metro [Mandatory Credit: Photo by Prabhat Kumar Verma/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock (15122230cx) Prayagraj: Devotees gather at the Sangam on the eve of 'Mauni Amavasya' during the Maha Kumbh Mela 2025, in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. India: Mahakumbh Mela, Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh - 28 Jan 2025]
Tens of millions of pilgrims gathered to take a holy dip on the most auspicious day of the six-week Hindu festival. Drone footage showed millions of devotees, shoulder to shoulder, arriving in the pre-dawn dark at the temporary township in Prayagraj at the confluence of three rivers – the Ganga, Yamuna, and the mythical, invisible Saraswati.
Image Credit: Metro [TOPSHOT - A pilgrim (C) leaves the hospital after a stampede during Maha Kumbh Mela festival in Prayagraj on January 29, 2025. A stampede at the world's largest religious gathering in India killed at least 15 people with many more injured, a doctor at Kumbh Mela festival told AFP. (Photo by Niharika KULKARNI / AFP) (Photo by NIHARIKA KULKARNI/AFP via Getty Images)]
Video and photographs after the stampede showed bodies being taken away on stretchers and people sitting on the ground crying. Others stepped over a carpet of discarded clothes, shoes, backpacks and blankets left by people as they tried to escape the rush.
Image Credit: Metro [ALLAHABAD, INDIA - JANUARY 29: (EDITOR'S NOTE: Image contains graphic content.) Officers carry an unresponsive body away from the "holy grand bath" site after a deadly stampede on January 29, 2025 in Allahabad, India. Kumbh Mela in 2025 is a Maha Kumbh, which is a significant Hindu festival celebrated once every 144 years at Prayagraj (Allahabad). All akharas cancelled the grand bath after the stampede. (Photo by Elke Scholiers/Getty Images)]
Vijay Kumar, who came for the festival from the eastern city of Patna, said: ‘We had barricades in front of us and police with batons on the other side. ‘The push from behind was very powerful,…people started falling. There were people lying all around, I don’t know if they were dead or alive.’.
Image Credit: Metro [Emergency personnel carry a person on a stretcher after a stampede before the second "Shahi Snan" (royal bath) at the "Maha Kumbh Mela" or the Great Pitcher Festival, in Prayagraj, India, January 29, 2025. REUTERS/Sharafat Ali]
A woman who was part of the crowd but did not give her name also told news agency ANI that she and her mother were among those who fell. ‘People kept stepping on us. I am safe but my mother has died,’ she said. Yogi Adityanath, the top elected official in Uttar Pradesh, said: ‘The situation is now under control, but there is a massive crowd of pilgrims.’.
Image Credit: Metro [PRAYAGRAJ, INDIA - JANUARY 29: Police carry a victim of a stampede amid the ongoing Maha Kumbh Mela festival in Prayagraj on January 29, 2025. Many people are feared dead after a stampede at the Maha Kumbh Mela, a Hindu festival being touted as the world's largest religious congregation, which kicked off this month in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. (Photo by Amarjeet Kumar Singh/Anadolu via Getty Images)]
![[Mandatory Credit: Photo by Prabhat Kumar Verma/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock (15122230cx) Prayagraj: Devotees gather at the Sangam on the eve of 'Mauni Amavasya' during the Maha Kumbh Mela 2025, in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. India: Mahakumbh Mela, Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh - 28 Jan 2025]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/SEI_237740139-24c7.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
![[TOPSHOT - A pilgrim (C) leaves the hospital after a stampede during Maha Kumbh Mela festival in Prayagraj on January 29, 2025. A stampede at the world's largest religious gathering in India killed at least 15 people with many more injured, a doctor at Kumbh Mela festival told AFP. (Photo by Niharika KULKARNI / AFP) (Photo by NIHARIKA KULKARNI/AFP via Getty Images)]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/SEI_237739500-a765.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
![[PRAYAGRAJ, INDIA - JANUARY 29: Police carry a victim of a stampede amid the ongoing Maha Kumbh Mela festival in Prayagraj on January 29, 2025. Many people are feared dead after a stampede at the Maha Kumbh Mela, a Hindu festival being touted as the world's largest religious congregation, which kicked off this month in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. (Photo by Amarjeet Kumar Singh/Anadolu via Getty Images)]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/SEI_237752353-304e.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
