GS-III: Disaster Management: Stampede & Crowd Control
Stampedes can occur in different situations such as religious congregations and processions; food / relief distribution; entertainment events; escalator / moving walkways / foot bridges; sports events; political rallies, riots; fires during events; natural disasters and so on.
Stampedes can be unidirectional or turbulent. The unidirectional stampedes generally occur when crowd reacts to a sudden trigger such as a barricade that stops crowd movement or a louse noise from behind that makes then crowd run in one direction. Turbulent stampede is more dangerous and happens when two crowds moving in opposite direction merge or a stationary crowd reacts to a panic.
Why humans prone to stampede?
Humans are prone to stampede because of mass psychology. Mass psychology plays a role in many different phenomena like human stampedes, financial bubbles, fashion trends or political movements. Humans, like other animals, have certain instinctive reactions which have helped them to face the fight or flight situations and survive as a species.
Stampede is often triggered in response to some perceived danger and disrupts the orderly movement of crowds resulting in irrational movement for self protection. In most cases, the trigger is psychological- such as a rumor, louse noise or one person slipping / falling etc. The lack of physical space compounds the mob behavior and increases sense of threat.
Further, as per NDMA guidelines, the inappropriate or poorly manage crowd control procedures may also trigger stampede rather than preventing them. For instance, if police reacts to a group of unruly people in such a way that it chases them in direction opposite to incoming crowd, it may result into an stampede and hence a disaster.
What are the worst stampede tragedies in India in recent years?
Stampedes are frequent in India due to poor crowd management and the way our public spaces such as temples, railway stations, bridges etc. are constructed. Every year, hundreds of people lose their lives due to stampedes, which generally occur at temples, railway stations and political rallies. The below graphics shows death by stampede in India for the last few years.
Some of the deadliest stampedes in India are shown in below graphics:
Rajahmundry stampede, July 2015
This stampede happed on the opening day of Pushkaralu festival on banks of Godavari river in Rajahmundry when the pilgrims rushed into the Puskhar ghat to take a holy dip. This resulted in death of 27 people.
Datia stampede, October 2013
This happened in 2013 October during Navaratri on a bridge near Ratangarh Mata temple in Datia District of Madhya Pradesh. 115 people lost live in this.
Sabarimala stampede, January 2011
The worst recorded accident happened at Sabarimala in Kerala on 14 January 2011, Makara Jyothi Day when a stampede triggered by toppling over of a jeep took as many as 106 lives.
Pratapgarh stampede, March 2010
Around 63 people were killed during a stampede at Ram Janki Temple in Uttar Pradesh. This incident was triggered when an unfinished gate of the temple fell, creating panic among the devotees gathered to collect free food and clothes on the death anniversary of wife of Kripalu Maharaj.
Rajasthan temple stampede, September 2008
This incident happened at Chamunda Devi temple of Jodhpur in Rajasthan claiming lives of 120 pilgrims.
Odisha Puri stampede, July 2008
Six people lost their lives during an stampede during Jagannath Yatra in Puri.
Himachal stampede, August 2006
In 2006, a shelter collapse triggered an stampede killing around 160 devotees at Naina Devi temple in Himachal Pradesh.
Maharashtra stampede, January 2005
At least 350 people were killed in a stampede at a religious fair at Mandher Devi temple in Satara district of Maharashtra.
Nashik stampede, August 2003
40 people lost life in a stampede that broke out at the Kumbh Mela at Nashik on August 27, 2003 near the holy Godavari river.
Kumbh Mela stampede, February 1954
This was one of the worst stampedes in India that claimed over 800 lives in Mahakumbh mela at Allahabad.
Chennai Flood Relief Centre stampede, 2005
This happened in December 2005 at an emergency flood-relief distribution centre in Chennai as the flood victims queued to receive food aid. Many people feel that the stampede could have been avoided had the state Government organised flood aid distribution on a regular basis at a number of locations, with police and public address systems to regulate the crowd.
Elphinstone Road railway station stampede, 2017
In the morning rush hour of September 29, the stampede at the footbridge on Elephantine Road railway station claimed 27 lives.
What caused Elphinstone Road stampede? How this tragedy exposes the problems suburban railway and urban infrastructure of Mumbai?
The tragedy occurred on September 29, 2017 when a narrow bridge connecting Elphinstone Road and Parel stations got overloaded with commuters. The overcrowding of commuters was due to two reasons. First, it began raining and the commuters stopped at the top of the bridge waiting for the rain to stop. Second, as reported in media, someone shouted “Phool gir Gaya”, which led people to hear “Pull Gir Gaya” and resulting a trigger for chaos and stampede.
How this tragedy exposes the problems suburban railway and urban infrastructure of Mumbai?
The extensive reach and absence of equivalent alternative mode of local transport in Mumbai has resulted in intensive use of local trains that makes it one of the most overcrowded train systems in world. In the 9 compartment train, around 4500 people get stuffed during peak hours against the capacity of 1700 resulting in so called Super-Dense Crush Load (15 people standing per square meter of floor space). It is estimated that around 2000 people die every year on the Mumbai local train network. Most deaths occur due to overcrowding, people using tracks to avoid overcrowded footbridges etc.
This tragedy has exposed various problems in Mumbai’s sub-urban railway and overall infrastructure. It raises many questions as follows:
A question of political priority
A few months back, the government renamed Elphinstone road station as Prabhadevi station, so that it can get rid of a British legacy and it is named after local deity Prabhadevi. The political priority can be gauged from the fact that the resolution to change the name of the station was passed unanimously in the Maharashtra Assembly, however, nothing was done to change the footbridge or any other infrastructure at the station.
Further, Mumbai, like many other cities in India suffers from political will. The city’s development depends on who is leading it. In most cities around the world, the development work is overseen by a Mayor, who is politically elected. However, in case of Mumbai, the Mayor has been reduced to a figurehead and the real powers are with the Municipal Commissioner who is appointed by state government.
Growth in surrounding areas not accompanied by infrastrucre
The area around Parel, Dadar and Prabhadevi stations has been traditionally known for Mumbai’s textile mills and factories. A few decades ago, the textile and manufacturing activities decline in the area and their space was taken by service and other kind of commercial activities. This led to replacement of the mills and factories by high rise buildings having offices and residences. Such development caused dramatic increase in the number of commuters to and from this area and demanded some adaptive measures to be taken by authorities to develop the public transport infrastructure. The footfalls on these railway stations has long time back crossed their carrying capacity.
Questions on Coordination
The day of this tragedy saw two groups of policemen reach at the accident spot viz. Mumbai Police and Government Railway Police (GRP). Instead of coordination, an argument was visible over jurisdiction. The GRP claimed that the foot over bridge was made on BMC land and came under Mumbai police jurisdiction while Mumbai Police said that since the bridge is used by railway passengers, responsibility is of Railway police. Such is the state of coordination. It raises a question of lack of coordination among too many agencies, none of which is ready to take responsibility in event of tragedy.
Same is the conditions of road infrastructure as there are five agencies handling roads in the city viz. BMC, State PWD, Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority, Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation and Slum Rehabilitation Authority in some cases.
Question of Civic Apathy
A normal Mumbaikar is so absorbed in his day-to-day struggle that he / she find no relevance of politics in his / her life. During General and State elections, voting percentage remains abysmally low. Mumbai is actually trapped in a viscous cycle of civil and political apathy.
However, it is not that Mumbai’s problems are insurmountable. Despite of lack of enough space, the city has capacity to provide public services to a huge population. If right thinking and forward looking politicians and civil societies come together, Mumbai can beat the best of the cities in the world.
What should government learn from Elphinstone Road Incident and how it should respond?
The best the government should learn from this incident is to do a course correction and re-ordering of mass transport in all cities. Government should give highest priority to augment the broken and tattered sub-urban stations and good management practices. This should involve broadening the narrow British era foot bridges; creating canopies to shield passengers from rain; providing low level exit in rail coaches etc. Mumbai is known for a commuting pattern from all sides towards the business district in down south. The huge population of the city needs a sound transport demand strategy and increased carrying capacity of the stations. For addressing the immediate requirements, efforts should be made to remove physical and policy bottlenecks such as clearing pathways inside and adjoining railway stations of obstacles; installing escalators; creating multiple entry and exit points; establishing an organized feeder transport network to / from stations and bus termini.
What are the main triggers of Stampede? How these triggers make crowd management important?
Based on the past incidents of crowd disasters in India and around the world, the triggers for the crowd disasters can be categorized into 6 categories. These are Structural, Fire/Electricity, Crowd Control, Crowd Behavior, Security, and Lack of coordination between various stakeholders.
- Structural Causes
The key structural causes include collapse of a structure such as Barricades, Makeshift Bridge, the Temporary structure is a major reason behind such crowd disasters. Other structural Causes are include Barriers on the way; difficult terrain specifically in the case of famous religious sites which are on top of hills; narrow and very few entry/exits and Absence of emergency exits etc.
- Fire/Electricity
These include Non-availability of fire extinguisher/fire extinguishers not in working condition; unauthorized fireworks in enclosed places; inappropriate fittings such as MCB, Aluminium wires instead of copper wires etc.
- Inability to Control Crowd
These include – more than expected crowd, lack of access control, closed/locked exit, reliance on one major exit route, poor queue monitoring; lack of sectoral partitions to segregate assembled crowd and lack of proper public address system to control crowd etc.
- Crowd Behaviour
These triggers include – a wild rush to force the way towards entrance/exits; unruly and irresponsible crowd behaviour; sudden flow of people in reverse direction.
- Security Related Triggers
The main secueity related triggers include – understaffed security personnel to regulate to control the crowd, inadequate briefing of security personnel on crowd control before deployment and Lack of adequate drills before actual deployment; lack of adequate scientific planning in making police arrangement to deal with crowd and lack of adequate CCTV surveillance, Absence of public announcement systems
- Lack of Coordination between Stakeholders
These triggers include lack of coordination among various agencies, Poor infrastructure, lack of medical assistance, public transport/parking facilities, and Communication delays.
Importance of Crowd Management
Management of large crowd is very crucial, even the slightest case of poor management can lead to a stampede. Once triggered, then it is very difficult to manage the fluid mass of people and within a fraction of a second, there can be a high number of casualties.
Due to increased urbanization, population explosion the instances of mass gathering has been more frequent than ever. Therefore in order to shift from earlier approach of “crowd control” to “Crowd Management” approach, there is a need for strategic planning at all levels i.e. from the venues of the mass gathering to that of district and state level disaster management plans. Therefore NDMA has formulated an integrated and structured approach regarding crowd and disaster management.
The Hazard, Risk and Vulnerability analysis(HRVA) of the venues of mass gathering should be the basis for preparation of a strategy for all three phases of any sever incident i.e. response, recovery and mitigation phase.
What are the NDMA’s guidelines on Crowd Management?
NDMA had released an elaborate document at this link for integrated crowd management. As per this document, the integrated crowd management is based on several pillars such as capacity planning, risk assessment, improved preparedness planning, incidence response, capacity building etc. The planning and management is subjective based on several parameters such as – Type of event (such as religious, schools/ university, sports event, music event, political event, product promotion etc.); Expected Crowd (age, gender, economic strata etc. such as farmers, shopkeepers), Crowd Motives (such as social, academic, religious, entertainment, economic etc.); Venue (location, topography of area, temporal or permanent, open or closed, public or private); and role of other stake holders (such as NGOs, neighbours of event venue, local administrators etc). Some salient points from the NDMA guidelines (for writing an answer in exam) are as follows:
Crowd Queues
Initial focus should be on traffic regulations around the mass gathering venues. There should be a route map for venues along with emergency exits route maps. Also, there should be Barricade facility to control the movement of crowd queues. In case of large crowd gathering, there should be snake line approach, along with constant monitoring of crowds for developing hazard points.
VIPs
There should be specific plans to handle VIPs and if VIPs add the security concerns then authorities should refuse entry to VIPs.
Communications
There should be CCTV surveillance, along with another public address system, such as loudspeakers should be installed at all crowded points, in order to communicate with the crowds.
Medical facilities
Ambulance and health care professionals should be available on venues. NDMA has recommended the medical first-aid rooms and emergency operations in order to handle post-disaster emergencies.
Basic facilities
The venue Organisers should ensure authorised use of electricity, fire safety extinguishers and other arrangements as per the safety guidelines.
Event organizers
Event organizers and venue managers should prepare and review the disaster management plan by coordinating with local administration and police. This will ensure that all the necessary facilities such as transport, medical and emergency facilities are as per safety standards.
Civil society
Police authorities should access the preparedness. Also, Event/venue managers should involve NGOs and civil society in traffic control, medical assistance and mobilization of local resources in case of disaster.
Capacity building
In order to be proactive, there is need to focus on the capacity building. Also, the training manual should be periodically in order to usher in new crowd management technique. Apart from that if there is issue of insufficient Security personnel, students, NGOs and civil society should be roped in. Also, the media should be trained to manage communications during crowd disasters.
Way forward
In most of the cases, the crowd disasters are man-made disasters and such tragedies can be prevented with proactive planning and execution by the authorities involved. Apart from that lessons should be learnt from past mistakes. Every member of society is the stakeholder in such disaster prevention. NDMA should also focus on a central repository of incidences so that lessons can be learnt from past.
