Stampede kills 145 Hindu worshippers

At least 123 people, mostly women and children, were crushed to death under the feet of thousands of pilgrims in a stampede at a temple in northern India yesterday, police said.

Chanting and singing hymns, Hindu worshippers were snaking up a 4 km trail, leading to a hill-top temple in Himachal Pradesh state, when part of iron railings on one side of the road broke, causing the stampede.

Thinking there was a landslide, the pilgrims panicked and started fleeing down the hillside, trampling falling women and children, police and witnesses said.