At least 29 women and children have died in a stampede after a religious gathering in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi. More than 70 are believed to have been injured, some critically, and doctors are urgently appealing for blood.
The stampede started when a girl fell down during women-only prayers in an Islamic centre.
At least 10,000 women were at the centre to mark the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday, which falls on Tuesday.
The dead and injured have been taken to two different hospitals. It is one of the worst accidents at a women’s gathering in the country in many years, the BBC’s Zaffar Abbas reports.
‘Wave of people’
Eyewitnesses say prayers were under way when a girl tripped from the building’s staircase.
Some women moved swiftly to try to save her and a terrible push-and-pull resulted in the crowd.
As people started to run out of the building, several women and children fell to the ground and were crushed under the feet of hundreds of people. Many more died due to suffocation.
“I heard a girl crying for help and a woman stopped to pick her up,” one injured woman, who identified herself as Zaibunisa, told the Associated Press news agency.
“When the woman stopped there was a wave of people who stepped over us.
Someone pulled me to the side and after I gained consciousness, I was in the hospital.” An emergency has been declared at the city’s two main hospitals and appeals are being made through local radio stations for blood.
Source: BBC News
Allah pak unhain Jannat-ul-Firdos main jaga aata farmae, Ameen
