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India is reeling from twin disasters that hit different parts of the nation over the
weekend, one a natural catastrophe and the other a man-made one.
Our Connie Kim reports. Two disasters killed scores of people over the weekend in India,
one a stampede in the central region of the county, and the other a cyclone on the east
coast. The tragic weekend began on Saturday when
Cyclone Phailin slammed into the east coast of India, killing at least 17 people and forcing
thousands to flee their homes. Rescue operations are still ongoing in the
state of Odisha. The cyclone is the deadliest storm to hit
India in over a decade, and it's estimated to have caused billions of dollars worth of
damage. The final death toll from the storm is expected
to climb, but officials say the nation's evacuation process saved more than 800-thousand lives.
Just 14 years ago, 10-thousand people were killed in Odisha when a cyclone hit the same
region. Meanwhile, on Sunday, more than a hundred
people, mostly women and children, were killed at a Hindu festival in the Madhya Pradesh
state of India. The Hindu, the nation's daily newspaper, reported
that about 25-thousand people were on a bridge when a section of the railing broke following
a stampede. Dozens drowned after falling into the waters
below, while hundreds on the bridge were injured. Just what caused the stampede remains unknown.
Some witnesses say police charged into the crowd, while other reports say the stampede
may have been triggered by a rumor that the bridge was about to collapse.
Stampedes are a common occurence in India. Most of them are blamed on poor crowd-control
techniques and planning by authorities. Connie Kim, Arirang News.