51 Reported Dead in Collapse of Hill at India Holy Site

Thousands of barefoot pilgrims jostling for space atop a holy mountain caused part of a hill to collapse, triggering a stampede that killed 51 people during a Hindu holiday Thursday in southern India, police said.

The cave-in occurred on a hill where thousands of people had crowded during the festival of Makar Sankranti to watch what pilgrims believe is the celestial light--visible deep in a forest facing the hill--on a route leading to the popular Sabarimala shrine in the mountains of southern India, police said.

Press Trust of India said more than 100 people were injured, several of them seriously, but police said 56 were hurt.

“There was panic all around, people were screaming, and most people died because they tried to rush down the hill,” said R. Vishvanath Pillai, a special officer at Pamba, a base camp at the bottom of the mountain.

The deaths occurred in the stampede or as a result of the cave-in itself, police said. Eleven bodies were thought to be buried under boulders, said Pillai, speaking by telephone from the site located about 1,300 miles south of New Delhi in Kerala state.

Sabarimala is a revered Hindu pilgrimage site. Millions of pilgrims each year climb the nine-mile route up the mountain in traditional black robes to worship at its temple to the Hindu god Ayyappa.