What Caused the Fatal Stampede at Allahabad Station

Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images On Monday, pilgrims waiting for their train at the Allahabad Junction railway station, where a stampede occurred on Sunday evening.

More than a day after a stampede that killed three dozen pilgrims and injured nearly 40 at the Allahabad railway station, government officials have not provided any concrete answers about the cause of the accident.

Several factors appear to have contributed to the deaths. Witnesses and participants in the stampede told India Ink o Sunday that train services were severely delayed, creating a huge backlog of pilgrims who were waiting in the small station for their journey back home after taking a dip in the Ganges River.

Then, a departing train was switched at the last minute from platform three to platform six, causing a huge crowd of people, many of whom had been packed in the station for hours waiting to leave, to swarm to platform six. Others weren’t sure where to go: announcements were being made continuously in Hindi, but those that spoke other languages or regional dialects could not understand them.

Railway ministers and officials have not confirmed any train delays, but did say the station was overcrowded, and implied that special trains that ran just for the mela might have actually contributed to the delays rather than alleviating them.

“Special trains are started in a particular direction when there is a demand for them,” said Sandeep Mathur, the chief public ! relations officer for the North Central Railways, which oversees Allahabad. “These trains do not follow a set timetable, and they do interfere with the timetable of the regular trains,” he said.

Many of the Kumbh mela pilgrims who were hoping to depart Allahabad station held unreserved tickets, meaning they could board any train for their destination no matter the time. Most departing trains scheduled for Sunday afternoon were several hours late, pilgrims said. A real-time map of Indian Railways trains available online, showed that almost all trains running on that route were running extremely late on Monday as well.

The New-Delhi- Darbhanga Swatantrata Express, for example, which departed from Allahabad Junction at 4:35 p.m. on Monday, was already running 10 hours and 35 minutes late. The Secunderabad- Patna Junction Express was running 6 hours and 30 minutes late. A special site created for the Kumbh Mela by the Indian Railways listed similar delays for other trains passing through the Allahabad Junction station, where the stampede occurred.

The footbridge where the stampede started was designed to hold less than a thousand people, but 3,000 people were using it at one point, said Ashok Kumar Sharma, who is in-charge of public relations for the Kumbh Mela. The station, which was built to hold 25,000 people, had a crowd of almost 200,000, he said.

In a press conference in Allahabad on Monday, Alok Johri, the general manager of the North Central Railway, said that just before the stampede there was sudden surge in the number of passengers.

Mr. Johri said that railway anticipated 350,000 passengers during the four days starting from Sunday until Wednesday. The railway arranged 135 special trains during that period and 162,000 passengers left Allahabad on Sunday, he added.

In 2001, the Kumbh festival lasted 44 days and two million passengers ! used the ! trains. Mr. Johri said that the railway had estimated that this year’s festival would draw 3.4 million passengers during 55 days.

About 30 million people gathered at Allahabad for the holy dip in Ganges River for the Kumbh festival last weekend, the most auspicious time during the 55-day event.

The Indian railway minister, Pawan Kumar Bansal, told journalists in New Delhi after the accident, “We have introduced 220 special trains for pilgrims. After this tragedy, we are reviewing the situation and may introduce more trains.”

Mr. Bansal did not provide a specific reason for the stampede, saying only that a large number of people gathered at the station for their return journey.

Railway passengers paid extra to depart from Allahabad. A special surcharge is imposed on return tickets from stations in Allahabad, in order to prevent the number of passengers using the railways from becoming unmanageable, Mr. Mathur said. “This is a common practice during most melas, or fairs, in Inda.”

The dead, whose names were made available  by the Ministry of Railways, were mostly women. A railway list still says that 16 bodies remained unidentified.

Mr. Bansal announced a compensation package for victims, including 100,000 rupees ($1,900) to the families of those who died and 50,000 rupees to the families of those seriously injured.

The chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Akhilesh Yadav, expressed his sorrow over the accident and announced that the state government will pay 500,000 rupees to the relatives of the dead pilgrims and 100,000 rupees to those who were injured.

Mohammad Azam Khan, minister of urban development and head of Kumbh arrangement committee, resigned from t! he commit! tee Monday, saying he was taking moral responsibility for the stampede.

However, Mr. Khan said that stampede took place at the railway station and that was not under his purview.