India temple stampede death toll rises to 109

The death toll from a stampede on a bridge in India rose to 109 Monday after the bodies of more Hindu pilgrims were recovered from the river below, police said.

"The latest information we have from the ground is that 109 people killed and 133 were injured," Anand Mishra, an officer in the local police control room, told AFP in an updated bulletin on Sunday's tragedy.

While scores of victims were crushed to death on the bridge in the town of Ratangarh, others died as the leapt into the river Sindh below in a bid to escape the chaos.

"We recovered the bodies from the river and from where they were crushed to the death," said Mishra, speaking by phone from the nearby city of Datia in the state of Madhya Pradesh.

The tragedy occurred at the same site of another stampede in 2006 in which more than 50 pilgrims were also killed.

- AFP