Dozens die in Hindu temple stampede

A stampede by hundreds of Hindu worshippers crossing a bridge over the Sindh River to a temple in central India left at least 109 people dead and more than 100 injured Sunday. A similar incident killed scores of people earlier this year.

"Many people are feared to have fallen into the river and are unaccounted for," D.K. Arya, deputy inspector general of police for the Chambal region of central Madhya Pradesh state, told Agence France-Presse.

Among the people killed by the stampede were 17 children and 31 women, he said. Hours later, relatives were searching for missing loved ones among the bodies that were lying grouped on the bridge.

Other police sources said some 20,000 people were on the bridge, headed to the Ratangarh temple, in the Datia district, to observe the Hindu holiday Durga Puja, when the stampede occurred.

Up to 400,000 devotees were already inside or around the temple at the time.

The deadly stampede is believed to have been caused by a rumor that the bridge was collapsing, Arya said.

The Indian television network NDTV reported that some participants, hoping to cut the long line to the temple, spread a rumor that it was on the verge of collapse.

Eyewitnesses told NDTV that police carrying batons charged the crowd in an effort to contain the panic. People retaliated by hurling stones at officers, and one officer was badly injured.

India has a long history of deadly stampedes at religious festivals, with at least 36 people trampled to death in February as pilgrims headed home from the Kumbh Mela religious festival on the banks of the Ganges River.

Some 102 Hindu devotees were killed in a stampede in January 2011 in the state of Kerala, and 224 pilgrims died in September 2008 as thousands of worshippers rushed to reach a 15th-century hilltop temple in Jodhpur.

Al Jazeera and wire services