Nineteen deaths at a Durga Puja pandal have shattered an assumption that generations of Kolkatans took for granted: that the city’s greatest annual celebration, despite its immense crowds, would not end in a catastrophe of this kind. For residents in their late sixties or early seventies who have spent their lives in the city, a fatal stampede at a Durga Puja pandal is without precedent in living memory.

The immediate circumstances point to a dangerous combination of narrow access, inadequate exits, heavy rain and failures of crowd management at Chorbagan. An announcement reportedly added to the confusion as people sought shelter. These are not hazards that organisers could not have anticipated. Rain is familiar to Kolkata; enormous crowds are intrinsic to its Puja celebrations. Planning must account for both. The contrast with the 2015 Deshapriya Park episode is instructive. An enormous Durga idol drew an overwhelming crowd, leaving eleven people injured in a stampede-like incident. No lives were lost, but the warning was unmistakable: a crowd-pulling attraction can overwhelm the space and arrangements intended to contain it.

Eleven years later, Chorbagan has demonstrated the difference between a close call and a........

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