Hathras tragedy: Why do stampedes happen? How to stay safe?

India witnessed one of its worst tragedies on Tuesday (July 2) when hundreds of people were trampled to death in Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras. As many as 121 devotees, including women and children, were killed in the stampede at a ‘satsang’, a prayer meeting, of self-styled godman, Bhole Baba, in the Ratibhanpur village in the Hathras district.

The Uttar Pradesh Police has lodged a First Information Report (FIR) against the organisers of the religious event, accusing them of concealing evidence and flouting conditions. As per the complaint, the organisers had sought permission for about 80,000 people but 2.5 lakh people attended the religious congregation.

But, why do such stampedes occur? What’s the science behind it? How to stay safe in such situations? Let’s understand.

Reason for stampedes

India has seen several stampedes at temples or religious events over the past years. In fact, a 2013 study in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction (IJDRR) found that religious gatherings and pilgrimages account for 79 per cent of stampedes in India.

While overcrowding is an obvious factor, mass panic, cramped spaces and improper management are other reasons that lead to stampedes.

Dirk Helbing, a professor of computational social science at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, told Deutsche Welle (DW) in 2022 that it is generally believed that stampedes happen due to panic. “That is considered to be a state of mind determined by anxiety and fear, which would come with an increased level of adrenaline. As a consequence, the flight and fight instinct might be activated. That would cause people to run away in panic relentlessly, perhaps even trampling other people that are in their way. While such a thing can happen, most crowd disasters are not of this kind,” he added.

In the West, these disasters usually take place at venues of music concerts and nightclubs, while in developing countries like India, most of the crushes happen at religious gatherings.

Speaking to Mint in 2015, Faisel T Illiyas, one of the authors of the IJDRR study said, “Most of the religious festivals are located in areas like banks of rivers, hilly terrains or mountain tops. These areas lack proper pathways, posing a geographical risk to the pilgrims.”

Experts say a lack of crowd management also triggers such tragedies. “In developed countries, there is a safety system that is in place. Organisers have to approach local authorities to get a kind of licence to have the mass gathering. After that, the authorities, after looking at the capacity of the venue, issue a certificate to the organisers licensing them. In India, there is [a] lack of safety, licensing and registration systems,” Illiyas said at the time.

ALSO READ: Bhole Baba was allowed to ‘leave first’ even as people were crushed: Inside the Hathras stampede

Science behind stampedes

When crowds reach a “critical density”, they become threatening, Jeff Wise, a science writer and author, wrote in a Psychology Today article in 2010. He said crowds continue to increase in size or density until there are “10 people per square metre”.

According to Wise, “unidirectional stampedes” take place when a crowd responds to an unexpected positive or negative change in force. “A positive change in force might occur when a crowd is stopped by a barricade or a narrowing in a passageway; a negative force is the release of constraining pressure, as for instance might occur when a gate is opened,” he explained.

The other is “turbulent stampede”, which Wise defines as two crowds merging from different directions or when an immobile crowd panics.

A 2023 study on human stampede literature published in Prehospital and Disaster Medicine laid out how such disasters occurred.

“…in normal situations, the crowd moves in a free or laminar flow. When density increases, the flow changes to “stop-and-go waves.” This can lead to loss of movement control by the crowd and individuals are pushed randomly – ‘crowd turbulence’.”

Speaking to DW, Professor Helbing said that crowd turbulence happens when several people are present in a space with little room to move and there is a high density of people with individuals pressed between each other. He said this can result in “transmission of forces” between bodies.

“Those forces add up and push people around in unpredictable ways, sometimes over distances of several meters. In such conditions, it is very difficult to keep balance and stay on one’s feet,” Heling stated.

After some time, if someone falls, it creates a gap in the crowd. Due to the person who stumbled, those standing next to that individual “lack a counterforce” to prevent them from falling due to the pushing.

Helbing told DW that this could lead to other people tripping as well, triggering a “deadly domino effect.”

To stop themselves from going down, people may trample others. “People at the bottom of the crowd eventually die of traumatic asphyxia,” the 2023 study noted.

What to do in such situations?

First of all, how will one know if a crush is about to happen?

According to Anna Sieben, an associate professor of cultural and social psychology at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, people often do not realise they are in a stampede event. She told DW that people could recognise a potential stampede if there is “uncontrollable swaying in all directions”, which reflects “high pressure in the crowd”.

Sieben recommends making oneself heard and shouting for help if they feel a stampede is about to occur. “Everyone’s focusing in the same direction, and sometimes — not always — they might not realise that there is a way out, or a less crowded situation in the back or at the sides of the crowd,” DW quoted her as saying.

If you are attending an event where there is a large number of people stuffed in a small space, be aware of all the exits. If there is an emergency, you may not have access to your nearest exit. Take the next exit and leave the venue as soon as possible.

The victims of a stampede who suffered compressive asphyxia can be saved if administered first aid such as cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), quickly and correctly.

Planning for such disasters in advance can also help in avoiding them. This can be done by ensuring there is enough space and preparing the staff in case of a stampede.

With inputs from agencies