6 School Girls Injured In Stampede-Like Situation At Jagannath Temple

A group of students from the Hrudananda High School, Rasgovindpur, Mayurbhanj district visited the city of the holy shrine for an outing, but their Christmas picnic turned out to be tragic for some of them after a stampede-like situation occurred in the temple arena in Puri.

A 70-member group of students had arrived in Puri for a picnic to celebrate Christmas. When they visited the popular Jagannath Puri Temple in the evening, they faced a commotion on the steps and six girls in the group got stuck and fainted.

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School Girls Injured In Stampede

As per reports, the six school girls who are injured are part of a high school group from the Mayurbhanj district. The police stated that the group had visited Puri for an outing.

The students first visited the sea beach during the day and then decided to pay their respects at the world-famous Jagannath Puri Temple in the evening.

The temple which was established centuries ago is popular for hosting a huge number of people all day, throughout the year. When the group visited the Temple premises in the evening, they started walking up the staircase.

It was during their climb up the 22 steps, also called Baisi Pahacha, towards the main temple when the incident occurred. It was around 8 pm when the six girls found themselves in a massive crowd up the stairs and the ruckus that occurred made them suffocate.

The girls fainted and got injured and the situation went out of control amidst the chaos. The girls are students of classes 9 and 10. They were rushed to the hospital soon after the incident. Their condition is currently stable as per the police statements.

Similar incident

Temple stampedes or stampede-like situations have happened from time to time in the country because of the massive crowds that visit the holy shrines' premises throughout the day.

In January 2005, hundreds of devotees were injured and over 340 were killed during a stampede at Mandhardevi temple's annual pilgrimage in Maharashtra's Satara district. The incident had occurred after a huge group of people fell down the steps which had become slippery due to the coconuts broken by the devotees near the staircase area.