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At least 145 Hindu worshippers have been killed in a stampede during a religious festival in Himachal Pradesh, a northern Indian hill state, police say. The accident occured on Sunday at the Naina Devi temple in the state’s Bilaspur district, where thousands of people had gathered for the nine-day festival which started on Saturday.

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At least 145 Hindu worshippers have been killed in a stampede during a religious festival in Himachal Pradesh, a northern Indian hill state, police say.

The accident occured on Sunday at the Naina Devi temple in the state’s Bilaspur district, where thousands of people had gathered for the nine-day festival which started on Saturday.

The Press Trust of India news agency said 145 people had died and 50 were injured.

Bilaspur is 250km northeast of India’s capital, New Delhi.

Most people died of suffocation, and about 30 of the dead are children, officials said.

DS Minhas, the state’s additional director-general of police, had earlier put the toll at 123.

SR Mardi, the state police chief, said rescue workers used a cable car at the temple to help evacuate the injured from the mountain top.

Al Jazeera’s Todd Baer, reporting from New Delhi, said that in addition to the fatalities, more than 300 people were injured in Sunday’s incident.

“The dead include many women and children,” he said.

Baer reported quoting the police that “the stampede happened after too many pilgrims tried to squeeze into a small area, they were heading up a mountain to the temple when a railing on the path collapsed.

“Rescue workers used a cable at the temple to help evacuate the injured from the mountain top, they have been rushed to area hospitals.

Baer said on August 6, 2000, a similar accident occurred, but only one person died.

“But clearly this incident is much more serious,” he said.

Six people died in a similar accident at a popular Hindu festival in July in the eastern state of Orissa, where about a million people had gathered in the town of Puri for an annual celebration.

In March, nine people were killed and many more injured at a religious gathering in central India when a railing broke at the temple premises, leading to a stampede among 100,000 devotees.aljazeera

, Voice of a Nation

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