Twenty-two people were killed and 35 others were injured after a stampede broke out on a crowded pedestrian bridge connecting two stations in Mumbai on Friday, one of the worst tragedies to hit the city’s teeming local train network.
It was unclear what caused the stampede, with official and witness accounts suggesting people may have panicked during the morning rush after believing there was a livewire or the bridge was about to fall.
“Some of the injured are in serious condition,” Deepak Sawant, the health minister of Maharashtra, said at a hospital where the injured were taken.
The bridge, which connects Elphinstone and Parel stations, is usually crowded during rush hours but it was more so on Friday morning after people huddled to take cover from a sudden downpour. The stampede took place around 10:30am, when hundreds of people are on it at a time on most days.
“Commuters started panicking after somebody shouted that the bridge was collapsing and that there was a short circuit. People started pushing and those in the middle of the stairs fell. Many commuters who tried to escape through the railing got stuck,” said a man who was on the platform below.