Managing the Earth’s Biggest Mass Gathering Event and WASH Conditions: Maha Kumbh Mela (India)

Abstract

Background: Mass gatherings including a large number of people makes the planning and management of the event a difficult task. Kumbh Mela is one such, internationally famous religious mass gathering. It creates the substantial challenge of creating a temporary city in which millions of people can stay for a defined period of time. The arrangements need to allow this very large number of people to reside with proper human waste disposal, medical services, adequate supplies of food and clean water, transportation etc. Methods: We report a case study of Maha Kumbh, 2013 which focuses on the management and planning that went into the preparation of Kumbh Mela and understanding its water, sanitation and hygiene conditions. It was an observational cross-sectional study, the field work was done for 13 days, from 21 January to 2 February 2013. Results: Our findings suggest that the Mela committee and all other agencies involved in Mela management proved to be successful in supervising the event and making it convenient, efficient and safe. Health care services and water sanitation and hygiene conditions were found to be satisfactory. BhuleBhatke Kendra (Center for helping people who got separated from their families) had the major task of finding missing people and helping them to meet their families. Some of the shortfalls identified were that drainage was a major problem and some fire incidents were reported. Therefore, improvement in drainage facilities and reduction in fire incidents are essential to making Mela cleaner and safer. The number of persons per toilet was high and there were no separate toilets for males and females. Special facilities and separate toilets for men and women will improve their stay in Mela. Conclusion: Inculcation of modern methods and technologies are likely to help in supporting crowd management and improving water, sanitation and hygiene conditions in the continuously expanding KumbhMela, in the coming years.

Mass gatherings medicine: public health issues arising from mass gathering religious and sporting events

“…The Kumbh Mela, the Hindu religious pilgrimage festival, is the largest mass gathering event in the world, [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] it attracts more than 120 million pilgrims from across the world for up to 2 months, and is held every 3 years alternately along the banks of four holy rivers: the Ganga, or Ganges, River (Haridwar district), Godavari River (Nasik district), Kshipra River (Ujjain district), and Sangam River (Prayag district, Allahabad) at a confluence of Ganga, Yamuna, and Saraswati. The 2013 Kumbh Mela event was attended by 70 million Hindu pilgrims over 55 days at the confluence of the Yamuna and Ganga Rivers.…”

“…The Kumbh Mela is unique in that it involves frequent and prolonged bathing by pilgrims in the holy river, a ritual which is believed to break the cycle of reincarnations and convey immortality. 17,18 Contamination of river water with faeces, urine, saliva, and sputa is inevitable and leads to transmission of waterborne and respiratory tract infections. 12,14,20,21 A notable example of such a cycle of transmission is the 1817-24 Asia cholera pandemic, which was associated with the Kumbh Mela.…”

“…GeoSentinel is a global network of travel medicine providers focused on sentinel surveillance, which generates evidencebased assessments of infectious disease risks for attendees of future mass gatherings events. 56,57 As with the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics in London, 18 WHO provided technical support to the Brazilian Ministry of Health and International Olympic Committee to ensure public health safety during the Games. This support included improving the quality of water for recreation and preventing the spread of Zika virus by increasing vector control efforts.…”

Protocol for development of a risk assessment tool for planning and management of religious mass-gathering events of India—a health system-strengthening initiative

“…History is in replete with incidences when MGs at fairs and festivals of India have turned into the hotspots of various types of risks [16]. Fire incidents have been reported to have occurred as a result of plastic sheets used as construction material for building cottages as temporary shelters for the pilgrims and also due to the use of liquid petroleum gas cylinders in the Kumbh mela premises and presence of unplanned and faulty electrical lines near lodging areas [17]. Previous studies [18,19] have reported impaired water quality of Ganges River and consequential health risks by virtue of mass ritualistic bathing and insisted time and again that water of river Ganges was not fit for drinking or bathing purposes.…”

Sparse Game Changers Restore Collective Motion in Panicked Human Crowds

“…The Kumbh Mela in India [1,2] and the Hajj in Arabia [3][4][5] are the two biggest periodic human gathering events on earth. Estimates have shown that ∼ 10 6 to 10 7 people gather into a confined space during these events.…”