Today, at the Lag D'Omer festival in Israel, a pilgrimage of orthadox Jews to Meron to pay tribute to the grave of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, a fatal crush occurred in which 44 deaths have been confirmed so far. The festival was being attended by thousands of Orthadox Jews from all over the world.
Although this hasn't been confirmed yet, the crash is said to have started after somebody slipped down some stairs in a narrow tunnel,causing people to trip over them as the crowd continued to move forwards. As the crowd were blocked off by people that had tripped, they began to be pressed against the walls of the tunnel, leading to the worst crush in modern Israeli civilian history. A witness described the crush. "Over 1,000 people together tried to go down a very, very small place, very narrow road and they just fell on top of each other,".
Despite the military soon being on the scene, catastrophe had already taken place as the casualties piled up. Police officers were caught off guard by over 100,000 people attending the festival. A separate investigation has been launched to decide if there was any misconduct by police officers. One thing is certain, we need to ensure people can celebrate their religion knowing that they are safe from disasters like these.
