A stampede that killed 10 people at a temple in India may have been started by the rumor a snake was on the loose, police said Sunday.
Around 40,000 devotees had gathered late Saturday for an annual Hindu festival outside a temple in Banka district, in the eastern Indian state of Bihar, to witness the traditional sacrifice of goats.
“The stampede is thought to have been caused by rumors that a portion of the temple had collapsed or that a snake had entered the packed complex,” a state official, who did not wish to be named, said at the scene.
Another 15 people were injured in the stampede, senior police officer P.K. Thakur said. Four women were among those killed.
The state government offered compensation to relatives of those killed at the temple, where celebrations were marking Durga Puga, one of the major Hindu festivals.
In March, police in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh blamed lax safety for the deaths of 63 people — all of them women and children — in a stampede outside a Hindu temple.