More than 140 die in stampede at Indian temple+

NEW DELHI, Sept. 30 Kyodo - More than 140 Hindu devotees were killed and scores were injured in a stampede Tuesday at a temple in India's northwestern Rajasthan State, the Press Trust of India reported.

''At least 140 people have been killed and 60 others are injured. Some of the
injured are in a serious condition,'' senior police official Kiran Soni Gupta
said.
About 20 000 devotees had gathered when the stampede began early in the morning.
According to the police officials, the death toll is expected to rise further.
A huge number of worshippers, especially women, had gathered at the Chamunda
Devi temple, situated in the southern end of the famous Mehrangarh Fort in
Jodhpur, to celebrate the nine-day Navratra festival that began Tuesday.
S.N. Thanvi, a senior Rajasthan government official, put the death toll at 103.
''Some devotees slipped on the slope on the temple path, others gathered there
started falling on each other causing the stampede,'' he was quoted by PTI as
saying. ''A majority of those killed died due to suffocation as a result of the
stampede.''
Earlier PTI reports had suggested the stampede was triggered by the collapse of
a wall near the shrine or that it started when some people tried to enter the
temple in a hurry to beat the crowd.
Temple stampedes are not unknown in India.
On Aug. 3, a stampede at the hilltop Naina Devi temple in northern Himachal
Pradesh State claimed the lives of 147 Hindu pilgrims.
And the Himachal Pradesh stampede was reportedly the 17th such incident in the
past three years.
==Kyodo