Devotees' death triggers debate over safety measures

Hans India

01-05-2025

Tirupati: The death of eight people, including two children, on Wednesday after a retaining wall collapsed at the revered Simhachalam temple near Visakhapatnam has once again has sparked a debate over the vulnerabilities in crowd and infrastructure management at major religious sites across the State. At least a dozen others were injured as thousands of devotees thronged the temple for the annual Chandanotsavam festival, one of its most significant events.
The Simhachalam tragedy adds to a grim pattern of fatal incidents in the State's temples, where spiritual devotion has too often intersected with administrative lapses. Over the past 25 years, stampedes, structural failures, and crowd surges have claimed many lives at pilgrim gatherings, despite repeated inquiries and official assurances of reform.
One of the deadliest in recent memory was the Rajahmundry Pushkaralu stampede in July 2015, where 29 devotees were crushed during the Godavari Maha Pushkaralu. A judicial probe pointed to poor coordination, inadequate crowd control, and an underestimation of turnout—but led to no criminal accountability.
Earlier, in January 2008, six devotees were killed at Vijayawada's Kanaka Durga Temple during Bhavani Deeksha when barricades gave way amid a crowd of 1.5 lakh pilgrims. Infrastructure on the ghat road was overwhelmed. Recommendations for better route planning and crowd flow were only partially implemented.
More recently, on January 8, 2025, six devotees died in Tirupati after devotees thronged near the Vaikunta Dwara darshan ticket counters. The government appointed a one-man judicial committee, which has completed five phases of its probe and is preparing for the sixth. The incident echoed the 2003 Garuda Seva rush in Tirumala, where 20 people were injured.
Despite these repeated tragedies, the State still lacks a dedicated regulatory body to oversee religious event safety. While the National Disaster Management Authority has issued detailed guidelines—including the use of drones, AI-powered crowd analytics, digital headcounts, and trained volunteers—their adoption at temple events remains inconsistent. Experts have long called for mandatory safety audits at gatherings exceeding 10,000 people, but implementation has been slow.