Hundreds of years of neglect ready to trigger series of catastrophe –more than 375 Hindu devotees dead in Maharashtra temple stampede 
Rahul Chopra, Special Correspondent
January 26, 2005

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In India there are thousands of temples and these temples are visited by millions of devotees every year. Hindu temples unlike other religious entities do not have a formal organized fund raising infrastructure. The temple authorities seldom ask people to donate unless they wish to from their heart. This gives rise to neglected infrastructure where at some point of time in a year millions of people assemble to worship God. The infrastructure and facilities are so neglected by the local and Central Government that catastrophe can occur any time. More than 3000 temples in India are ready to collapse because of lack of neglect and maintenance all over the country. 

The number of devotees who visit these temples have gone up exponentially over years. Neither the stair cases, not the entrance have been upgraded to accommodate them . In addition though there are local fire codes, Governments do little to check the possibility of stampede, suffocation and more. There are seldom any exit routes if an accident or fire breaks out.

At least 400 people, most of them women and children, were today killed and over 450 injured in a stampede at Mandradevi temple on a hillock in Satara district, Additional Director General of Police V N Deshmukh said. Deshmukh told PTI in Mumbai that the toll is expected to go up. He said the injured were rushed to various hospitals in the district. An electrical short circuit and resultant explosion in a transformer with a loud bang caused panic among the devotees leading to the stampede, official sources said. Impatient devotees broke into violence and torched nearby mandaps and pandals, the sources added. Meanwhile, Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and Deputy Chief Minister R R Patil have reached the civil hospital at Wai. 

According to reports from Newindpress, the stampede occurred at around 12 noon when some of the devotees, who had gathered on the auspicious occasion of Shakambhari Purnima (full moon), slipped and fell at the entrance of the sanctum sanctorum, sending a wave of panic among the 2 lakh people present there.

``Excess oil near the 'deepmaal'_lamp tower_combined with coconut water on the floor made the surface slippery. And as a couple of people fell, pandemonium broke out,'' said a survivor.

``As some tried to rush down, more people fell on the slippery surface. Meanwhile, devotees who were going up to the temple jostled with those who were coming down. Those caught in the middle were the most affected,'' he added.

State Water Resources Minister Ajit Pawar, who is overseeing rescue operations, said the toll was likely to go up. ``On the basis of the information that I am receiving, I fear the toll may be much higher,'' Pawar told this website's newspaper at Wai Mission Hospital, where 144 bodies had already been brought in. He said 29 bodies had been brought to the Wai Rural Hospital too.

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