145 deaths at India temple stampede
It sounds like a nightmare to pilgrims in Northern India on Shraven Navratras, a 9-day festival that honors the Hindu goddess Shakti, when they hear that 145 people, 30 of them children and 38 women, died on the path to a Himalayan hill shrine.
Dead pilgrims were left lying along the 2-mile muddy road wearing festive clothing, witnesses report, after most of them suffocated after a rumor of a landslide sent crowds racing down the hill and colliding with travelers journeying up to worship at the temple.
There are reports that a railing at the shrine broke and collapsed beneath the burden of the crowd, and launched many of the stampedes down steep, narrow stairs.