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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``People died of suffocation,'' said doctors at Wai Hospital. The narrow access to the temple was further blocked by shops selling puja materials and eateries that had been set up for the annual fair.

Like the hundreds of temple towns scattered all over the country, Mandar Devi too tells a story of neglected beauty. 

Located on a hill 4,650 feet above sea level, the temple, some 20 km from Satara, overlooks the picturesque Purandhar fort. Devotees attribute miraculous properties to a grove around the shrine.

Lore has it that the temple is more than 400 years old and was built during Shivaji's Maratha rule. However, no definite date on the temple's construction is available.

According to sources the temple was due for a thorough renovation and reconstruction. Temple authorities reached out several times to many sources including the Government. But no one cared. No one thought that the temple infrastructure the was built 400 years back to hold few thousand devotees may not be able to handle 200,000 devotees.

This kinds of catastrophe can happen thousand times unless Govern intervened and looks into the issues of public safety.

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