As authorities assess the damage from a Cyclone slamming into Eastern India, 91 people were crushed to death in a stampede at a Hindu religious festival in the central part of the nation.

Hundreds of thousands of festivalgoers had gathered near the district of Datia for the festival at Ratangarh temple in Madhya Pradesh state.  As they moved over a bridge, officials speculate impatient people at the rear of the crowd started rumors that the bridge was about to collapse, causing a panic and stampede. 

“Several people could be seen flattened to the ground in the midst of the melee,” said local devotee Atul Chaudhary, who just missed being caught in the stampede.  “Some of the youngsters panicked and jumped into the swollen river.”

The bridge had only recently been rebuilt after an earlier deadly stampede in 2007.

Meanwhile on the Eastern Shore, quick evacuations are being credited for keeping down the death toll from a cyclone that washed away thousands of mud homes and cut power to the region around Ganjam.  Vast areas are plagued with downed trees, flooding, and mud and muck. 

But as of Sunday night, the death toll is 17; it may very well be revised up, but it’s a far cry from the more than 10,000 people killed by a cyclone in the same area just 14 years ago.