Headlines
Factbox-Major stampedes in India over the years
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on February 16, 2025
3 min readLast updated: January 26, 2026
Global Banking & Finance Review®
Company
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on February 16, 2025
3 min readLast updated: January 26, 2026
This article reviews major stampedes in India, highlighting incidents at religious festivals and crowded gatherings over the past 20 years.
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - At least 15 people, mostly women and children, died and 15 were injured in a stampede at New Delhi's main railway station, the chief minister of India's capital territory told reporters early on Sunday.
Here is a list of previous major stampedes in India over the past 20 years, most of them at religious festivals or gatherings:
JANUARY 29, 2025: Dozens were killed in a stampede at the Maha Kumbh Mela, or Great Pitcher Festival, in northern India's Uttar Pradesh State, on one of the holiest days of the event as tens of millions of people gathered at the site in the world's biggest gathering of humanity.
JANUARY 8, 2025: At least six people were killed and 35 injured in a stampede near one of India's busiest and richest temples, in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, after thousands of devout Hindus assembled there to secure free visit passes.
JULY 2024: Around 121 people died after thousands of devotees rushed to get a closer glimpse of a Hindu preacher in the Hathras district of Uttar Pradesh state.
JANUARY 2022: At least 12 died and more were injured in a stampede at the Vaishno Devi shrine in Jammu and Kashmir, after a huge crowd of devotees tried to enter the narrow shrine.
OCTOBER 2013: Around 115 were killed and more than a hundred injured after a stampede at the Ratangarh temple in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh after more than 150,000 people gathered to celebrate Navratri, a nine-day festival that celebrates the Goddess Durga.
FEBRUARY 2013: At least 36 Hindu pilgrims were killed in a stampede on the busiest day of the Kumbh Mela in Uttar Pradesh in 2013. Of the dead, 27 were women, including an eight-year-old girl.
MARCH 2010: At least 63 people, more than half of them children, were killed in a stampede triggered by a massive rush for free food and clothes at a Hindu temple in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, media reported.
SEPTEMBER 2008: A total of 250 people were trampled to death at the Chamundagar temple in the northern desert state of Rajasthan as pilgrims gathered to celebrate Navratri.
AUGUST 2008: At the mountaintop Naina Devi temple in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh, about 145 Hindu pilgrims died after rumours of a landslide triggered a stampede.
JANUARY 2005: More than 265 Hindu devotees were killed and hundreds more injured after a stampede at the Mandhardevi temple in Wai town in the western state of Maharashtra. The stampede was caused by slippery steps leading up to the temple, media reported at the time.
(Compiled by Mayank Bhardwaj; Editing by William Mallard)
The article discusses major stampedes in India, focusing on incidents at religious festivals and crowded gatherings over the past 20 years.
Stampedes often occur during religious festivals and crowded events, frequently due to panic or inadequate crowd control.
Dozens were killed during the 2025 Maha Kumbh Mela stampede in Uttar Pradesh, India.
Explore more articles in the Headlines category
