Nearly 150 dead in India temple stampede: police

0 Comments | AFP, August, 2008

SHIMLA, India (AFP) — Close to 150 Hindu worshippers, including scores of children, are confirmed to have died at a temple in northern India in the worst stampede in the country in three years, police said Monday.

Tens of thousands of people had thronged the Naina Devi shrine in Himachal Pradesh state to attend week-long religious festivities when the rumour of a landslide triggered panic among devotees on Sunday.

"The death toll as of now is 148, and 48 people are injured," a police spokesman said early Monday.

Police started hitting devotees with batons to check the commotion, but this only created further panic, witnesses said.

"People started pushing their way back and many women and children fell down. Whoever fell down was trampled upon by the...