Indian pilgrim wakes up in morgue

Published August 7, 2008

NEW DELHI An Indian pilgrim knocked unconscious in a stampede that killed 150 people woke up in a morgue as doctors prepared to perform a postmortem examination on him, a newspaper reported on Wednesday.

 

Mange Ram, 19, lost consciousness in the stampede triggered by rumours of a landslide that caused panic among thousands of people climbing a steep mountain path, the report said.

 

Ram told the Times of India he awoke in a hospital morgue after Sundays tragedy at the Naina Devi shrine in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh.

 

'When I woke up, I was in the middle of a row of bodies waiting for postmortem,' he said.

 

'My throat was parched and I asked for water. Towering over me the doctors and nursing staff at Anandpur Sahib Civil Hospital looked dazed.

 

'They must have been surprised to see a dead man come alive like that,' he said.

 

Sat Pal Aggarwal, a doctor on the pilgrimage, said few checks were carried out to see if victims were alive and might have been saved.

 

'People were dumped quite haphazardly into trucks without following any procedure or checking if they were alive,' the paper quoted him as saying.

 

Despite the huge loss of life, the pilgrimage continued only hours after the corpses had been cleared.

 

The temple, devoted to the goddess Naina Devi, sits on a hilltop in the Himalayas and devotees must climb a narrow stairway to reach it. It has been the site of previous deadly accidents.

Opinion

Editorial

Military convictions
Updated 22 Dec, 2024

Military convictions

Pakistan’s democracy, still finding its feet, cannot afford such compromises on core democratic values.
Need for talks
22 Dec, 2024

Need for talks

FOR a long time now, the country has been in the grip of relentless political uncertainty, featuring the...
Vulnerable vaccinators
22 Dec, 2024

Vulnerable vaccinators

THE campaign to eradicate polio from Pakistan cannot succeed unless the safety of vaccinators and security personnel...
Strange claim
Updated 21 Dec, 2024

Strange claim

In all likelihood, Pakistan and US will continue to be ‘frenemies'.
Media strangulation
Updated 21 Dec, 2024

Media strangulation

Administration must decide whether it wishes to be remembered as an enabler or an executioner of press freedom.
Israeli rampage
21 Dec, 2024

Israeli rampage

ALONG with the genocide in Gaza, Israel has embarked on a regional rampage, attacking Arab and Muslim states with...