Sabarimala, Saturday, January 15, 2011: It was another black January 14 for Sabarimala pilgrims with last night’s stampede tragedy being the third in the history of the hill shrine.

The first tragedy shook the shrine on January 14, 1952, when it was gutted in a fire caused by explosion of fireworks leaving 66 Ayyappa pilgrims dead. The present shrine was rebuilt in place of the older one.

In 1998, 52 pilgrims died following a stampede at Pampa, which also occurred on January 14 after `Makara Jyothi’ darshan. As had happened yesterday, there was huge rush on that day also and most of the victims were from Andhra Pradesh.

Last night’s stampede that claimed lives of 102 pilgrims and 50 injured, seven of them seriously, in a stampede that occurred at Uppupara near here last night.

Majority of the deceased were from Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh as the grassland forest route known as `Pulmedu’ in the Periyar tiger reserve, is trodden by devotees from these states.

Unconfirmed reports said one of those killed was a Sri Lankan national. According to official sources, at least 12 persons, some of them children, are feared missing.

All the bodies had been shifted to hospital at Kumali for post-mortem and arrangements are being made to take them home.

Kerala government had geared up its machinery fully for tackling the situation.

(News Agency)