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Religious Crowd Deaths: Stampedes & Crushes

I’m currently dreading the oncoming feast of St.Michael of Halloween. Here in the UK, those tubs of chocolates have got shallower with no discernible price drop as far as I can see so I have to spend more to placate the little trick or treat buggers.
Send them to my house we lov the little buggers with all their interesting costumes and excitement. I'll just watch some Hammer horror classics ready to pause at a moments notice till ~ 9 PM or so.
 
Send them to my house we lov the little buggers with all their interesting costumes and excitement. I'll just watch some Hammer horror classics ready to pause at a moments notice till ~ 9 PM or so.

We have a Halloween thread for that sort of thing.
 
This time it's holy rollers, the talking in tongues can get out of hand. Oil on the floor? I can hear Slip sliding Away playing in the background.

At least 20 people have been crushed to death and 16 others injured during an outdoor religious service in Tanzania.

Worshippers were attending a Pentecostal service at a stadium in the northern town of Moshi on Saturday evening when the incident occurred. Moshi district commissioner Kippi Warioba said attendees rushed forward to be anointed with blessed oil. Tanzania's President John Magufuli sent his condolences and called for better security at such large events.

The service was held by pastor Boniface Mwamposa, who refers to himself as "the apostle". Survivors said Mr Mwamposa told hundreds of people gathered at the service to pass through an area where "blessed oil" had been poured over the floor.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-51346644
 
This time it's holy rollers, the talking in tongues can get out of hand. Oil on the floor? I can hear Slip sliding Away playing in the background. At least 20 people have been crushed to death and 16 others injured during an outdoor religious service in Tanzania. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-51346644
Oil is for anointing. It is supposed to go on the head. After they fell over they were anointed "with extreme unction".
 
A crowd crush or stampede has caused dozens of deaths at an Orthodox Jewish festival in Israel.
Israel stampede: Dozens killed in crush at religious festival

Dozens of people have been killed in a stampede at a religious festival in the north-east of Israel.

Israel's national emergency service Magen David Adom (MDA) confirmed the deaths without giving exact numbers, and said dozens more had been wounded.

Newspaper Haaretz reports at least 38 people have been killed. Emergency services are evacuating the injured. ...

Videos posted online show thousands of people tightly packed together and trying to flee the chaos at the site.

It is the largest event held in the country since the coronavirus pandemic began, with tens of thousands reportedly attending. ...

Tens of thousands of Orthodox Jews make a pilgrimage to Meron each year for Lag B'Omer, an annual religious holiday marked with bonfires, prayer and dancing.

According to the Times of Israel, organisers estimated that 100,000 people arrived on Thursday night, with more set to arrive on Friday. ...

FULL STORY: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-56938657
 
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This tragedy in Israel is of great pain to me.

Tonight and tommorow are the festival of Lag B'Omer....meant to be one of the happiest days of the religious calendar.

A festival with many layers of meaning, but essentially linked to the memory of Rabbi Simon bar Yochai who lived in the 2nd century and was responsible for learning and passing on the teachings of the Zohar, a major book of Kabbalah.
It is traditionally regarded as the date of his death, though it is not certain if this is fact.
His death is marked by celebrating, as is the custom for the memory of some righteous people.

He is buried at Meron, a small village near the city of Tzfat, and the night is an occasion for bonfires, dancing, praying and some study.

Lag B'Omer is not merely for "Orthodox" Jews, most Israelis mark it as a holiday with BBQs, and for the less religious it is linked to Bar Kochba's rebellion against the Romans.

This disaster will send spiritual shockwaves throughout the Jewish world, Rabbi Shimon was regarded as someone who could intercede to ward off death decrees on account of the merit of his learning...for this to happen on this day is especially significant.
 
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It seems extremely mean-spirited for posters to crow about the deaths of so many people just because they are not personally into religion. I have been in two crushes in my life. Neither had do do with religion. Both were terrifying. It was only luck that no-one died. It only takes one person to lose their footing and that is it. A crush could happen to anyone. And they do. Football matches, nighclubs. Do those people also deserve to die? What if they supported the "wrong" club or listen to the "wrong" sort of music? No. :rcard:
 
It has emerged that the Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem had been at the event and left two hours early, urging the police to take immediate action because he felt people were in danger from large crowds. He says the police did not listen to him.
I guess they felt the event had occurred in the past without fatalities, and he was being alarmist?

A tweet from 2018 has surfaced, from a journalist, warning that at this gathering, the crowds would exit from the music site along a relatively narrow tunnel bordered by metal and stone walls, and that it was a disaster waiting to happen.

From various blogs that I know and trust, written by people who had relatives at the event, it seems that part of a grandstand collapsed above the tunnel, and that in the following confusion, some people feinted (perhaps they fell a few feet to the ground and were unconscious for that reason?).
Their friends tried to get them out of the crowds to get medical attention.

Then some people fell in the exit tunnel below the grandstand area, perhaps these were the ones who had feinted, falling into the tunnel, or were other people?
It is not clear if the grandstand collapse caused the first people to fall in the exit tunnel.
Others fell on them and so on, also falling on some steep steps near the tunnel.

One story of heroism has emerged, of a particularly strong man who somehow managed to hold back part of the crowd to make space for others.

There are allegations that the police (at first) did not help, and viewed things as crowd disorder rather than an urgent crisis.
I am loathe to blanket blame them as a force, as once the scale of the disaster became realised then they did disperse the crowds and prevent more people entering the area.
The speed of the fatal crush and chaos/confusion would have played their part.
But some police failings seem to have happened, and an investiagtion will show many lessons to be learned.

Similarities to Hillsborough - of an infrastructure not suited to the purpose it was being used for, of lack of immediate awareness amongst the police, of a crowded tunnel where extricating people would be hard, and of members of the public and emergency services doing their best against overwhelming odds.
 
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It has emerged that the Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem had been at the event and left two hours early, urging the police to take immediate action because he felt people were in danger from large crowds. He says the police did not listen to him.
I guess they felt the event had occurred in the past without fatalities, and he was being alarmist?

A tweet from 2018 has surfaced, from a journalist, warning that at this gathering, the crowds would exit from the music site along a relatively narrow tunnel bordered by metal and stone walls, and that it was a disaster waiting to happen.

From various blogs that I know and trust, written by people who had relatives at the event, it seems that part of a grandstand collapsed above the tunnel, and that in the following confusion, some people feinted (perhaps they fell a few feet to the ground and were unconscious for that reason?).
Their friends tried to get them out of the crowds to get medical attention.

Then some people fell in the exit tunnel below the grandstand area, perhaps these were the ones who had feinted, falling into the tunnel, or were other people?
It is not clear if the grandstand collapse caused the first people to fall in the exit tunnel.
Others fell on them and so on, also falling on some steep steps near the tunnel.

One story of heroism has emerged, of a particularly strong man who somehow managed to hold back part of the crowd to make space for others.

There are allegations that the police (at first) did not help, and viewed things as crowd disorder rather than an urgent crisis.
I am loathe to blanket blame them as a force, as once the scale of the disaster became realised then they did disperse the crowds and prevent more people entering the area.
The speed of the fatal crush and chaos/confusion would have played their part.
But some police failings seem to have happened, and an investiagtion will show many lessons to be learned.

Similarities to Hillsborough - of an infrastructure not suited to the purpose it was being used for, of lack of immediate awareness amongst the police, of a crowded tunnel where extricating people would be hard, and of members of the public and emergency services doing their best against overwhelming odds.
I noticed another issue when looking at footage. Very few people were wearing masks and there was no social distancing. I know Israel has vaccinated most people, but maybe if they'd enforced the distancing, this may not have happened?
 
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I noticed another issue when looking at footage. Very few people were wearing masks and there was no social distancing. I know Israel has vaccinated most people, but maybe if they'd enforced the distancing, this may not have happened?
I didn't see anyone wearing masks in the videos I saw but if social distancing had been in place then I'm sure it wouldn't have happened.

But sounds like it was a disaster waiting to happen unfortunately going by how people have felt about it in the past.
 
I noticed another issue when looking at footage. Very few people were wearing masks and there was no social distancing. I know Israel has vaccinated most people, but maybe if they'd enforced the distancing, this may not have happened?

The law to wear masks outdoors in public in Israel was ended last Sunday.

The latest figures from a week ago saw 1,430 confirmed Covid cases out of a population of 9 million, with 13 new cases diagnosed last Saturday.

The event was given a nominal attendance limit of 10,000 for Covid reasons, but around 100,000 attended.
In the past up to 500,000 can attend over 24 hours.
 
Maybe it'll come up with recommendations to lessen the chances of a repeat occurrence.

An Israeli government commission investigating a deadly stampede at a Jewish pilgrimage site in April held its first day of hearings on Sunday, almost four months after 45 people were killed.

The incident at the Jewish festival at Mount Meron in northern Israel on April 29 was the deadliest civilian disaster in the country’s history.

Around 100,000 worshippers, mostly ultra-Orthodox Jews, attended the celebrations despite coronavirus regulations limiting outdoor assemblies to 500 people, and in spite of longstanding warnings about the safety of the site. Hundreds of people were caught in a bottleneck in a narrow passageway as they descended the mountain, and the slippery slope caused some to stumble and fall. The resulting human avalanche killed 45 people and injured at least 150 others.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/world/arid-40364258.html
 
A crowd surge at a popular Hindu shrine in Indian-controlled Kashmir on New Year’s Day killed at least 12 people and injured 15 others, officials said.

Initial reports suggested an altercation between a group of devotees led to the stampede at the Mata Vaishnav Devi shrine, where tens of thousands of Hindus had gathered to pay respects in the hilly town of Katra, near southern Jammu city.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/world/arid-40776378.html
 
A lot of these incidents could be avoided if proper crowd control was in place.
 
We do the same here, alas. The nearest thing in Britain to this sort of religious passion, where thousands gather in a confined space to sort-of-worship, is called football. When this combines with inadequate stewardship, neglected venues allowed to slide into disrepair, and venue owners unwilling to invest in improvement as this means a cut in profit.... well, there was the crowd stampede at a stadium in Scotland that killed 66 at a Rangers-Celtic game. Because of shabby, neglected and ill-maintained premises, there was the stadium fire in Bradford that caused multiple deaths. And dare I say Hillsborough? Not many people attend mass religious events here. But we are not immune. The same sort of thing can happen with the same underlying causes.

Ibrox Park disaster 1971

Bradford Stadium Fire 1985, 58 dead
 
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The conman preacher is also respnsible.

At least 29 people, including 11 children and a pregnant woman, have died in a stampede at an open-air Pentecostal church service in Liberia.

The gathering - known as a crusade - was being held in a densely populated beachside area of the capital.
Police say members of a street gang entered the prayer ground on Wednesday night after a collection had been done as the event was ending, causing panic.
Some of them were armed with knives and one person has been arrested.
Hundreds of people were at the gathering in Monrovia's New Kru Town suburb, organised by an influential pastor known as Apostle Abraham Kromah.
He runs a church called the Word of Life Outreach International, along with a radio station. His followers believe that he is able to heal and aid people through his prayers.

Police spokesman Moses Carter told the BBC the preacher was being questioned to help officers with their inquiries.
The bodies of those who had died in the crush had been taken to the morgue at Redemption Hospital, he said.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-60070025
 
there was the crowd stampede at a stadium in Scotland that killed 66 at a Rangers-Celtic game.
It wasn't a "crowd stampede". It was a tragic accident that took the lives of 66 people, "stampede" seems to suggest that it was caused by the behaviour of fans, which it wasn't.

I'm not for one moment suggesting you were implying that, AgProv, but just want be clear as there will be some people reading this who are unaware of the full terrible story of what happened on 2nd January 1971.
 
It seems extremely mean-spirited for posters to crow about the deaths of so many people just because they are not personally into religion. I have been in two crushes in my life. Neither had do do with religion. Both were terrifying. It was only luck that no-one died. It only takes one person to lose their footing and that is it. A crush could happen to anyone. And they do. Football matches, nighclubs. Do those people also deserve to die? What if they supported the "wrong" club or listen to the "wrong" sort of music? No. :rcard:
Yes, I was scrolling through this thinking about the UK football crowds that have gone wild and crushed people. It isn't just relious crowds that do this sort of thing though the title of the thread does indicat Religious crowds. No matter the reason for the crowd, it is tragic for anyone to be hurt or die from it.
 
Yes, I was scrolling through this thinking about the UK football crowds that have gone wild and crushed people. It isn't just relious crowds that do this sort of thing though the title of the thread does indicat Religious crowds. No matter the reason for the crowd, it is tragic for anyone to be hurt or die from it.

That's why we have a general thread on such events during non-religious gatherings and events ...

Death By Crowd: Stampedes & Crushes
https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/death-by-crowd-stampedes-crushes.17545/
 
Another tragedy in Nigeria.

Nigerian police say they have launched an investigation after 31 people died in a crush in the southern city of Port Harcourt.

It happened in a sports field on Saturday morning where a church was handing out food to the poor, some of whom had waited there overnight.

The crowd "became tumultuous and uncontrollable" and organisers failed to calm the situation, police say..

Many of those who died in the crush were women and children. Witnesses told the AFP news agency there was frantic pushing and some were trampled underfoot when people trying to reach the entrance were forced back.

"They were telling people 'Go back, go back, go back,'" Chisom Nwachukwu said. "Some people that were pushing from backwards were marching on those people."

Security and emergency services were called to the scene to try to bring the situation under control. Some of the injured are being treated at Port Harcourt's military hospital.

The King's Assembly Church said it was "deeply saddened" by the incident, and was reviewing its safety and crowd management procedures.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-61623229
 
Stampede caused by firew.

At least 41 people have died in a fire at a church in the Egyptian city of Giza, officials say.

An electrical fire broke out as 5,000 worshippers gathered for mass at the Coptic Abu Sifin church, security sources told Reuters.
The fire blocked an entrance, causing a stampede, the sources said, adding that many of those killed were children. Dozens are thought to be injured.
Fire services say the blaze has been brought under control.
The exact cause of the fire is not clear.
"People were gathering on the third and fourth floor, and we saw smoke coming from the second floor. People rushed to go down the stairs and started falling on top of each other," Yasir Munir, a worshipper at the church, told Reuters.

"Then we heard a bang and sparks and fire coming out of the window," he said, adding that he and his daughter were on the ground floor and able to escape.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi offered his "sincere condolences to the families of the innocent victims that have passed on to be with their Lord in one of his houses of worship".
The prosecutor's office said it had sent a team to the scene to investigate the cause of the blaze.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-62541074
 
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