Officials blamed the rush of devotees at the privately-owned Sri Venkateswara Temple on Kartika Ekadashi festival for the stampede. The newly-built temple is believed to draw, on average, at least 5,000 devotees a day, but on Saturday, the number swelled to nearly 20,000, and railings and barricades erected to control movement collapsed like ninepins

The death of nine people, including eight women and one child, in a stampede at the Venkateswara Temple in Kasibugga, Andhra Pradesh’s Srikakulam district, was an unfortunate and preventable tragedy. It is a grim reminder of poor crowd management at important places and the general indiscipline among people, be it at places of worship or at political events or even sports felicitation ceremonies, something that has claimed over 110 lives this

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