15 die in stampede after 'burst dam' rumours

At least 15 people, including seven children, were killed in a stampede after rumours that a dam had burst spread through a shantytown in India, a top government official said today.

It happened in the Nehru Nagar slum area of Mumbai as India’s monsoon season continued to caused death and destruction.

“People died due to false rumours,” RR Patil, deputy chief minister of Maharashtra state of which Bombay is capital, said.

“Fifteen people have been killed and seven are children.”

Patil said rumours of a dam breach and overflowing rivers had spread repeatedly this evening across several northern Bombay neighbourhoods, despite official efforts to quell them. He said police vans with microphones attempted to stem the panic.

The shanty dwellers panicked two days after landslides buried Bombay residents alive and cut off neighbouring villages, paralysing the country’s financial capital and its surrounding state.

More than 500 people have been killed since the deluge on Tuesday, with 273 dying in Bombay itself.