Key events
Akharas, the holy sects of sadhus (holy people), have officially cancelled their bathing today which was due to start around 4am:
#WATCH | #Mahakumbh | Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh: “Some ‘Devta’ of the Panchayati Mahanirvani went ahead. The situation did not seem to be suitable because of the large crowd. So the Akhara has stopped the ‘Snan’ for the Mahamandaleshwars…” pic.twitter.com/0VnZvW0Tyd
— ANI (@ANI) January 29, 2025
Hannah Ellis-Petersen
The government was making announcements on Tuesday night telling people to get in the water, dip twice and leave the site instantly, calling it a sin to do the third dip because they wanted to get people away from the site so quickly.
Hannah Ellis-Petersen
Despite word spreading of the crushes, large crowds are still heading towards the river to take a dip.
29 January is one of the holiest days of the Kumbh Mela. It’s the day when most people will come to take a holy bath.
Hundreds of millions of people had been expected to come but it seems numbers have exceeded even what the government expected. Over the past 24 hours people have been arriving non-stop.
Pictures are also beginning to emerge from the scene, showing ambulances and injured pilgrims being carried away by rescue workers:
The Times of India reports that ambulances have rushed to the scene in Prayagraj, home to the sacred confluence of the Ganges, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati rivers.
“Some people have got injured and have been hospitalised after a barrier broke at the Sangam [confluence]. We are yet to have the exact count of those injured,” one official was quoted by the paper as saying.
“We came in a batch of 60 people in two buses, we were nine people in the group. Suddenly there was pushing in the crowd, and we got trapped. A lot of us fell down and the crowd went uncontrolled,” one woman told PTI Videos from outside the hospital where the injured were taken.
“There was no chance for escape, there was pushing from all sides.
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of deadly crowd crushes at India’s Kumbh Mela festival.
At least 38 people and as many as 100 are feared to have died in crushes in the early hours of Wednesday, local officials have said, as people went to bathe in a river as part of a Hindu ritual.
People were crushed at about 4am on Wednesday as people surged forward in three separate areas at the confluence of the rivers in the city of Prayagraj which is the holiest place to bathe.
The scale of the tragedy is still unclear but we will bring you the latest news as we have it.
