A stampede at a temple in southern India’s Andhra Pradesh state has killed at least nine people and injured others, according to officials.
The incident took place as worshippers crowded into the Sri Venkateswara Swamy temple in Kasibuga to observe a Hindu religious ceremony on Saturday.
“An inquiry will be conducted into the tragic incident,” said Pawan Kalyan, the state’s deputy chief minister, putting the death toll at nine.
The deceased include eight women and a young boy. At least one more person was seriously injured.
According to local officials and media, nearly 25,000 people gathered at the venue, far more than the temple was equipped to handle.
There were no separate entry and exit points, and there was reportedly chaos when a railing collapsed under crowd pressures as devotees climbed to the elevated first-floor temple premises.
Local authorities said the temple is privately managed and not under the official endowments department. They said it had not applied for or secured the required official approvals, and authorities were not informed of the event, so they could not secure it.
The office of Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was “pained” by the stampede.
The office said an ex gratia payment of 200,000 Indian rupees (about $2,260) will be paid to the families of the deceased, while the injured will receive 50,000 rupees ($565) each.
Addressing a local political gathering, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu pledged strict action against those responsible for the stampede.
Saturday’s stampede is not an isolated incident, with many happening already in 2025, including those at temples.
But such calamities are not limited to religious gatherings; in late September, a crowd crush at a rally for a popular Indian actor-turned-politician in the southern state of Tamil Nadu killed at least 39 people
Another incident in June killed at least 11 people outside a cricket stadium in the southern Indian state of Karnataka.
