During festive seasons or special religious days, crowd management becomes one of the major challenges in India. Due to poor arrangements and heavy rush, sometimes an unexpected incident strikes and creates damage. And this is exactly what happened in Andhra Pradesh during Ekadashi darshan at the Venkateswara Swamy Temple in Srikakulam. Keep reading to know what happened.
Stampede At Venkateswara Swamy Temple
आंध्र प्रदेश:
श्रीकाकुलम में वेंकटेश्वर स्वामी मंदिर में भगदड़ मचने से 9 लोगों की मौत हो गई और कई लोग घायल हो गए हैं!आज़ एकादशी है इस मौके पर दर्शन के लिए आए लोग मंदिर में ज्यादा भीड़ हो गई।
मंदिर का प्रशासन भीड़ को संभालने में पूरी तरह से फेल हो गया!#Stampede #Srikakulam… pic.twitter.com/bYZQrFmNuA
— Derigo (@G0derigo) November 1, 2025
In a recent incident, a massive crowd gathered at an Andhra Pradesh temple, and an X user (@G0derigo) even shared a photo of it. According to the reports from News18, Andhra Pradesh Minister Nara Lokesh revealed that the stampede in Andhra Pradesh happened because of an “unknown amount” of crowd rush. The minister said the sudden flow of devotees at the privately managed temple led to “a lot of suffocation”. As a result, nine devotees lost their lives and several others were injured. News18 reported that the Minister called the incident “very unfortunate” and also explained how the situation went out of control.
Nara Lokesh, in this statement, explained the incident, revealing that the temple allows darshan from 6 a.m. to 12 p.m. every day, and then it closes for a break. On Sunday, when the crowd kept increasing, the authorities closed the entry gate around 11:30 a.m. That one decision triggered chaos. The temple had only one entrance and one exit. So when people saw the entry gate getting shut, many devotees assumed they could exit using the same route. This misunderstanding pushed more people toward the same narrow point. It caused congestion, discomfort and suffocation inside the space.
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Compensation To The Families
About the stampede, Andhra Pradesh minister also mentioned that someone from the crowd tripped, resulting in a chain reaction. People behind continued to move forward. The fall turned into a stampede within seconds. He also said the temple authorities did not prepare proper queue arrangements, especially for such a large festival crowd, News18 reported. He added that most of the victims were women.
Nara Lokesh said the government responded immediately. Local officials, the Home Minister and disaster management teams reached the spot. They shifted injured people to hospitals and tried to save as many lives as possible. Later, the committee formed to investigate this incident, and they will submit a report soon. After that, the government will issue a standard operating procedure so that such incidents do not repeat in future.
Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu has announced ₹15 lakh compensation for the families of the deceased and ₹3 lakh for people who got seriously injured. Prime Minister Narendra Modi also expressed his grief and approved ₹2 lakh help for the deceased and ₹50,000 for those with major injuries. Three critically injured devotees have been shifted to a superspeciality hospital.
We are truly saddened by this unfortunate incident at the Andhra Pradesh temple.
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Cover Image Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons/ Siddharth Verma & X/ @G0derigo