NEW DELHI—Thirty-six dead were discovered inside a well at a Hindu temple in central India after scores of festivalgoers plunged into the murky water when the well's lid collapsed, officials said Friday.
The video of Thursday's fall at the temple complex in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, shows panic and people fleeing. To assist people fleeing, an excavator tore down a wall of the decades-old shrine.
After draining out the water, over 140 rescuers, including army troops, used ropes and ladders to retrieve the remains from the well. The endeavor was made more difficult by a restricted passageway and debris in the well.
“We have recovered 36 bodies, and everybody is accounted for now,” Pawan Kumar Sharma, commissioner of the local municipal corporation, told The Associated Press.
According to Sharma, the secretary of the temple board was killed, and the president is recuperating from injuries.
According to him, police filed a case of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, but no arrests have been made thus yet.
According to witnesses, a big number of devotees had gathered at the temple to perform a fire rite and celebrate the holiday.
As the structure collapsed, dozens of people plunged into the river and were engulfed by falling rubble, according to police Commissioner Makrand Deoskar.
According to Kantibhai Patel, head of a residents' organization, officials were sluggish to respond, with the first ambulance arriving an hour after the alarm.
According to Shivraj Singh Chauhan, the state's highest elected official, the building probably collapsed down due to the weight of the big throng. He directed that an investigation be launched.
On Thursday night, an army rescue squad joined the mission. According to the Times of India, rescue efforts were accelerated as underwater cameras revealed bodies floating in the filthy waters of the hole.
According to Chauhan, 33 of the bodies have been identified. Sixteen of the injured victims remained hospitalized on Friday.
Sobbing families claimed the dead' corpses and went to the hospital where the injured were being treated.
Temple officials had ceased using the well years before and had closed the mouth with iron grills and tiles.
Municipal authorities asked the temple owners to remove the well's covering in January because it was a dangerous and unapproved structure, according to the newspaper, but temple officials ignored the warning.
Because of poor construction and a failure to follow laws, building collapses are widespread in India.
A century-old cable suspension bridge fell into a river in the western state of Gujarat in October, hurling hundreds of people into the water and killing at least 132 people in one of the country's deadliest tragedies in the last decade.
