{"id":55696,"date":"2015-07-14T21:01:14","date_gmt":"2015-07-14T13:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=55696"},"modified":"2015-07-14T21:01:14","modified_gmt":"2015-07-14T13:01:14","slug":"stampede-kills-22-during-religious-festival-in-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/07\/14\/stampede-kills-22-during-religious-festival-in-india\/","title":{"rendered":"Stampede kills 22 during religious festival in India"},"content":{"rendered":"

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HYDERABAD, India — At least 22 people were killed and dozens injured in a stampede on Tuesday during a Hindu religious bathing festival in southern India.<\/p>\n

The stampede occurred in Rajahmundry in Andhra Pradesh state as tens of thousands of people pushed forward to bathe in the Godavari River during the Pushkaralu festival, said Arun Kumar, a state administrator.<\/p>\n

The stampede was triggered by some pilgrims who were trying to retrieve their shoes, which had fallen off in the rush to the river bank, police said.<\/p>\n

Kumar said the incident happened not long after the 12-day bathing festival started in the early morning hours.<\/p>\n

An additional 34 people were hospitalized with injuries, Kumar said.<\/p>\n

Festival participants believe a bath in the river can rid them of their sins.<\/p>\n

Rajahmundry is 450 kilometers (280 miles) east of Hyderabad, the joint capital of Andhra Pradesh and newly created Telangana state.<\/p>\n

Nearly 24 million people are expected to take part in the 12-day festival at varying points along the Godavari River, which flows through the two states.<\/p>\n

Deadly stampedes are fairly common during Indian religious festivals, where large crowds gather in small areas with few safety or crowd control measures.<\/p>\n

In October 2013, a stampede in Madhya Pradesh state in central India killed more than 110 people, mostly women and children.<\/p>\n

This story has been corrected to show that the festival’s name is Pushkaralu, instead of<\/em> Kumbh.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HYDERABAD, India — At least 22 people were killed and dozens injured in a stampede on Tuesday during a Hindu …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":55751,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-news-w","mauthors-omar-farooq","mauthors-the-associated-press1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}