India temple stampede kills 110

At least 110 people have been killed in a stampede at a temple in the popular tourist city of Jodhpur in north India, the third such tragedy to hit the country in a matter of months.

The disaster happened early this morning as thousands of devotees gathered to mark the start of the nine-day Navaratr festival at the Chamunda Devi temple at the top of the Mehrangarh fort, in the state of Rajasthan.

Several hundred people were injured after being trampled to the ground.

Television channels showed pilgrims carrying scores of limp bodies down the slope that leads to the temple while others attempted to resuscitate victims.

One child was shown hunched over her father's lifeless body, crying "Daddy, please get up".

Early reports suggested that the stampede was triggered by rumours of a bomb. The temple authorities dismissed that and blamed a steep, slippery slope. One witness said that temple officials had closed part of the route up the slope, creating a crush of people that broke a barricade.

A senior civil servant said: "We have 113 bodies in two government hospitals in Jodhpur," .

It is believed that most of the victims were men as the queue for women was separate.

Temple crushes are common in India. Last month at least 145 people including 40 children were killed in a similar stampede at the Naina Devi temple in the mountainous state of Himachal Pradesh.

The tragedy was triggered by the collapse of iron railings along a narrow path leading to the hilltop temple.

Hundreds of people - mostly women and children - fell down a steep slope as the panicking crowd tried to flee to safety, police and local officials said. Most of the victims died from suffocation.

Six people died in July at a popular Hindu festival attended by about a million people in the town of Puri in the eastern state of Orissa. In March, nine people died at a religious gathering in central India when a railing broke at the temple, triggering a stampede among 100,000 devotees.

In 2005, about 265 pilgrims were killed in a stampede near a temple in the western state of Maharashtra.

The latest tragedy is likely to trigger another call to ensure religious festivals are better organised.

Earlier this month, a government report blamed temple officials for the Naina Devi disaster. It suggested that in future pilgrims be split into groups of about 200 at such events and that "special arrangements" be made to manage the rush at weekends and holidays.