Chennai airshow deaths — an avoidable tragedy

In July, 121 persons, most of them women, died in a stampede at a religious function in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh. The tragedy was blamed on poor crowd management. The Hathras incident was not the first of its kind, of course, and questions were raised about the administration’s callous approach to dealing with the crowd that had gathered to listen to preacher Surajpal alias Bhole Baba. Poor crowd management at festivals, religious events, and even public functions in the past had resulted in stampedes, causing a large number of deaths: In November and December 2005, a stampede during the distribution of flood relief in Chennai resulted in several fatalities. Much had been said after these tragedies, and citizens assured by the State that never will these happen again.

This is why the deaths of five persons in Chennai, who were returning after an Indian Air Force airshow on Marina Beach on Sunday, are shocking. That these deaths happened in the heart of a state capital makes the administration complicit in what was an avoidable tragedy. Unlike in Hathras, where the crowds had overshot the expectations of the organisers, the surge in Marina (the crowd was estimated at well over a million) should have been expected. In fact, there was an aggressive campaign to mobilise spectators and people obliged. Families, young and old, had crowded on a two-km stretch along the Bay of Bengal to watch the airshow at noon. The administration, however, had not organised even basic amenities such as drinking water for the people who gathered in the open on the beach, braving the sun and the dry salty wind blowing in from the sea. The deaths were all due to dehydration: Not surprising, since drinking water was unavailable at the site, and public transport was not provided to ship the tired people to bus, metro, and suburban rail stations.

If elementary protocols of crowd management had been followed, these deaths could have been avoided. The least that can be done now is to fix accountability.

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