At least 87 people have been killed in a crowd crush at a Hindu religious gathering in northern India, and more than 150 others were taken to hospital with serious injuries, local officials have said. The crush happened when thousands of devotees tried to leave a prayer meeting, or satsang, with a local religious leader in Hathras district, Uttar Pradesh state. “The scenes were unbelievably horrific,” said Vijay Singh, a 45-year-old devotee from Agra, whose sister-in-law was one of the victims. She was pushed into a ditch after the family were separated. Singh’s wife witnessed her last moments and barely managed to escape, he added. “My wife said the crowd was pushing each other because they were struggling to breathe. My sister-in-law fell in the ditch, and due to the violent pushing many others fell in the ditch.” The bodies of 60 victims had been taken to health centres in Hathras, and another 27 dead were taken to hospitals in neighbouring Etah district, local officials said. The dead brought to Etah were mostly women, officials there said, with three children and one man among the victims. Images on social media also appeared to show women accounted for many of the dead laid out in the courtyard of a Hathras hospital, although they could not be independently verified. One of the dead was 60-year-old Eashwar Pyaari, a devotee who lived in Etah and often went to religious gatherings to “find peace”, her son Ramdas said in a phone interview from the hospital, where he was waiting to collect her body. “I had written my phone number on a piece of paper and gave it to my mother so she could reach me if she needed me. I received a call from a stranger who found it on her body. That’s when I found out she was killed in the stampede today,” he said. “It’s been a devastating few hours for us,” he added. “I didn’t have the heart to tell the grandchildren that their beloved grandmother is dead.” Police said overcrowding may have contributed to the tragedy, the latest in a grim succession of mass deaths at religious events in India. “Every year, these kinds of incidents keep repeating themselves, and we learn nothing,” MP Manoj Kumar Jha told the New York Times. “Both the state and federal governments have failed to develop a sensitive approach toward crowd management. As a nation we are good at drawing crowds but not good at managing them.” Organisers had a permit for 5,000 people to attend the event, which was held in a tent, but it drew a crowd of over 15,000, Indian media reported. Video footage appeared to show the structure collapsed, as women wailed over the dead. “As we tried to exit towards a field, suddenly a commotion started, and we didn’t know what to do,” an unidentified witness told broadcaster India Today, adding that the venue had a narrow exit. The leader of the satsang, named Bhole Baba, is from Etah, which is about 200 km (125 miles) south-east of New Delhi, Indian media reported. He claimed to have been in the intelligence services, before pursuing religious leadership over two decades ago. The prime minister, Narendra Modi, offered condolences to the families of those killed, and his office said victims’ families would be given 200,000 rupees ($2,400) compensation and the injured 50,000 rupees. The chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath, said relief and rescue operations were on a “war footing” and he had ordered an investigation into the deaths. Recent mass casualties at religious gatherings include at least 112 people killed in 2016 at a temple complex in Kerala state. A crowd of thousands had gathered to mark the Hindu new year when a banned fireworks caused a huge explosion that tore through concrete buildings and started a fire. In 2013, at least 115 people were crushed to death or died in a river in central Madhya Pradesh state, when a rumour that a bridge was about to collapse sparked panic among pilgrims visiting a popular temple for a festival.