A look at stampedes and crowd disasters in India over the years

NEW DELHI (AP) — At least 30 people are dead and many more injured in a stampede Wednesday as tens of thousands of Hindus rushed to bathe in a sacred river at the massive Maha Kumbh festival in India, the world’s largest religious gathering.

Wednesday was a holy day in the six-week festival, which started on Jan. 13, and authorities were expecting a record 100 million devotees to engage in ritual bathing at the confluence of the Ganges, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati rivers.

The Maha Kumbh festival is held every 12 years. Authorities expect more than 400 million people to visit the pilgrimage site this year.

Here’s a look at other major stampedes in India over the past two decades:

More than 100 people were killed in a stampede in northern India in July 2024 following a Hindu religious gathering. Thousands had gathered at a makeshift tent for an event led by a Hindu preacher in Uttar Pradesh state. The victims were crushed as they rushed to leave. Video of the aftermath showed the makeshift structure appeared to have collapsed.

A collapsing bridge caused a stampede that killed 115 people, mostly women and children, on Oct. 13, 2013. Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims had come to a Hindu temple in the remote town of Ratangarh in Madhya Pradesh state on the last day of the popular 10-day Navaratri festival.

At least 168 people were killed and 100 injured when thousands of pilgrims stampeded at a Hindu temple in Jodhpur on Sept. 30, 2008. Severe overcrowding apparently caused the crush, as more than 12,000 people gathered at the temple to celebrate Navaratri.

Dozens of women and children were among the 145 people who died on Aug. 3, 2008, when thousands of pilgrims stampeded at a remote mountaintop temple in northern India during celebrations to honor Shakrti, a Hindu goddess. The devotees attended a nine-day religious festival at the Naina Devi Temple in the Bilaspur district of Himachal Pradesh state. Rumors of a landslide apparently started the panic, according to a senior government official.

A stampede during a religious procession to a hilltop temple on Jan. 25, 2005, killed at least 258 people and injured 200 in western India, near the village of Wai, some 150 miles (241 kilometers) south of Mumbai. The stampede was triggered after several Hindu pilgrims inside the temple fell on a slippery floor and were crushed by other pilgrims. Angered over the deaths, some pilgrims started a fire that gutted hundreds of makeshift shops along a narrow walkway leading to the temple and set off the deadly rush.

FILE - Fire breaks out a temple in Wai village, about 250 kilometers (150 miles) south of Bombay, India, on Jan. 25, 2005. (AP Photo/Rahul Deshpande, File)

FILE - A team of local residents help the administration assist the relatives of the dead in identifying their family and friends at a civil hospital in Anandpur Sahib in Punjab, India, on Aug. 4, 2008. (AP Photo/Ashwini Bhatia, File)

FILE - Volunteers carry a stampede victim in Jodhpur, India, Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2008. (AP Photo, File)

EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT - FILE - Indian villagers gather as policemen, in uniform, arrive at the scene of a deadly stampede on a bridge across the Sindh River in Datia district in Madhya Pradesh state, India, on Oct. 13, 2013. (AP Photo, File)

FILE - Rain puddles are seen at the scene of a fatal stampede, in Fulrai village of Hathras district about 350 kilometers (220 miles) southwest of the state capital Lucknow, India, on July 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh, File)

A Ukrainian drone strike killed one person and wounded three others in the Russian city of Voronezh, local officials said Sunday.

A young woman died overnight in a hospital intensive care unit after debris from a drone fell on a house during the attack on Saturday, regional Gov. Alexander Gusev said on Telegram.

Three other people were wounded and more than 10 apartment buildings, private houses and a high school were damaged, he said, adding that air defenses shot down 17 drones over Voronezh. The city is home to just over 1 million people and lies some 250 kilometers (155 miles) from the Ukrainian border.

The attack came the day after Russia bombarded Ukraine with hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles overnight into Friday, killing at least four people in the capital Kyiv, according to Ukrainian officials.

For only the second time in the nearly four-year war, Russia used a powerful new hypersonic missile that struck western Ukraine in a clear warning to Kyiv and NATO.

The intense barrage and the launch of the nuclear-capable Oreshnik missile followed reports of major progress in talks between Ukraine and its allies on how to defend the country from further aggression by Moscow if a U.S.-led peace deal is struck.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday in his nightly address that Ukrainian negotiators “continue to communicate with the American side.”

Chief negotiator Rustem Umerov was in contact with U.S. partners Saturday, he said.

Separately, Ukraine’s General Staff said Russia targeted Ukraine with 154 drones overnight into Sunday and 125 were shot down.

Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

This photo provided by the Ukrainian Security Service on Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, shows a fragment believed to be a part of a Russian Oreshnik intermediate range hypersonic ballistic missile that hit the Lviv region. (Ukrainian Security Service via AP)

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy, second left, listens to British Defense Secretary John Healey during their meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Danylo Antoniuk)