Category Archives: Kumbh Mela

At least 18 people die in crowd crush at Delhi railway station

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Rush broke out as travellers scrambled to board trains in India’s capital to go to world’s largest religious gathering

At least 18 people have died in a crush at a railway station in India’s capital when surging crowds scrambled to catch trains to the world’s largest religious gathering, officials have said.

The Kumbh Mela attracts tens of millions of Hindu faithful every 12 years to the northern city of Prayagraj, and has a history of crowd-related disasters – including one last month, when at least 30 people died in another crush at the holy confluence of the Ganges, Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati rivers.

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India crowd crushes: dozens feared dead at Kumbh Mela religious festival – latest updates

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Pilgrims are desperately searching for missing loved ones after deadly crushes in Prayagraj where world’s largest religious gathering is taking place

Wednesday is when the sadhus (holy people), all 13 sects of them, take their holy baths in the Ganges.

The holy bathing time is at 4am and that is around the time that the crowd crushes are thought to have started. It appears three separate crushes took place, as people surged forward, into groups of people who were sitting or lying on the ground on the banks of the river.

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Kumbh Mela: how a superspreader festival seeded Covid across India

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From across India, millions of Hindu pilgrims came to take a ritual dip in the Ganges, then returned home carrying Covid-19. Here are their stories

On 12 April, as India registered another 169,000 new Covid-19 cases to overtake Brazil as the second-worst hit country, three million people gathered on the shores of the Ganges.

They were there, in the ancient city of Haridwar in the state of Uttarakhand, to take a ritual dip in the holy river. The bodies, squashed together in a pack of devotion and religious fervour, paid no visible heed to Covid protocols.

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Kumbh Mela: cleaning up after the world’s largest human gathering

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Around 220 million people descended on sleepy Prayagraj (formerly Allahabad) for the 50-day Hindu festival. The cleanup could take months

As the sun sets over the Ganges, Vikas Kumar drives his garbage truck through the streets of Prayagraj, a historic Indian city of 1.1 million that was until last year known as Allahabad. “All this stuff people have been eating, drinking and throwing away,” he says, gesturing at piles of food waste, discarded water bottles and mud-spattered flowers. “It will take three or four months to clear.”

Over a 50-day period this normally sleepy city has been visited by around 220 million people for the Kumbh Mela – a Hindu pilgrimage dubbed the world’s largest human gathering.

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Mauni Amavasya at the Kumbh Mela – in pictures

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Monday was Mauni Amavasya, the new moon day and most significant bathing day, particularly if it falls on a Monday. At the Hindu festival pilgrims bathe in the confluence of three sacred rivers to cleanse them of sin and liberate them from the cycle of life, death and rebirth

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‘I have lost my wallet and brother’: reuniting at Kumbh Mela, the world’s largest festival

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As an estimated 15m Hindus gather at convergence of holy rivers in India, the huge lost-and-found centres go digital

Day and night, through crackling loudspeakers, the announcements ring out. “It is Babu speaking,” says a shrill voice. “I have lost my wallet and brother. Please come here the moment you hear this.”

“Lal Ram is here,” a woman says a few times. “Come and collect him from the yellow tower.”

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