Three dead in temple wall collapse during Chhath puja in Bihar village

Three devotees, including two women, were killed after a wall collapsed during Chhath puja in a Samastipur village in Bihar on Sunday morning; roughly 12 hours after two devotees had died in a stampede in state’s Aurangabad district. State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) was conducting rescue operations and a JCB machine was pressed into service to clear the debris.

Devotees were offering morning ‘arghya’, when the wall of an old Kali temple, situated on the banks of a pond in Badgaon village in Hasanpur police station area, collapsed on them. Sources said the worn-out temple wall had developed cracks over time.

While Samastipur District Magistrate confirmed death of two women devotees—62-year old Leela Devi and Bachchi Devi—in the wall collapse and announced ex-gratia of Rs 4 lakh each for their families, Hasanpur Block Development Officer (BDO) Dunialal Yadav said another devotee named Kokai Yadav (55) had also died after reaching home due to injuries received in the collapse.

Samastipur DM Shashank Subhankar confirmed the third death but said he would find out if it was due to injuries from the wall collapse. “I am on THE way to the spot to assess the entire situation leading to the tragic incident,” the DM said.

The other two deaths in the state during the four-day long Chhath festival were reported from Aurangabad district on Saturday. News agency ANI said two minors - a boy and a girl- had died in a stampede in Suryanagari Dev area. The six-year-old boy belonged to Patna’s Bihta and the eighteen-month-old girl was from Sahar in Bhojpur.