How the Mumbai Elphinstone Road railway station stampede happened

The cause of the stampede at Elphinstone Road railway station on Friday morning, which has claimed 22 lives and injured 35 others, has not yet been established, but witnesses and officials said that a huge crowd of commuters was standing huddled on the foot-over bridge to escape the sudden heavy downpour when the incident took place.

While some eyewitnesses said people panicked after someone shouted that the bridge was collapsing, others said commuters started pushing and shoving to get off the bridge as somebody shouted about an electrical short circuit.

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The police said the stampede was triggered after concrete chunks of the pedestrian bridge fell causing panic that it was about to collapse.

An eyewitness, who was standing at the station platform when the incident took place, said: “Commuters started panicking after somebody shouted that the bridge was collapsing and that there was a short circuit. People started pushing and those in the middle of the stairs fell. Many commuters who tried to escape through the railing got stuck.”

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Another witness, advocate Aakash Kotecha, said that a lady carrying a load of flowers on her head accidentally dropped it on the stairs amid the huge crowd, which caused people to trip and fall and triggered a stampede.

However, a railways spokesperson said that when the rain stopped, there was a rush to exit the bridge, which led to the stampede.