Israeli investigators are examining what caused a crush that killed at least 44 worshipers and injured 100 more at a mass religious gathering in Mount Meron overnight.
Thousands of worshipers had crowded onto the mountain burial site to celebrate the Lag B’Omer holiday, an annual event where participants sing, dance and light fires in homage to second-century Mishnaic sage Rabbi Shim Bar Yochai But, in the early hours of Friday morning, the festival erupted into chaos, as a huge wave of people trapped others beneath them, including children, witnesses told Reuters. « We were going to go inside for the dancing and stuff and all of the sudden we saw paramedics from MADA running by, like mid-CPR on kids, and then one after the other started coming out, » said Shlomo Katz. Another attendee, Wice Israel, said he saw people falling to the ground. « It was crowded and there were around 60,000 to 70,000 people, no place to move, and people started to fall to the ground, a lot fell to the ground, » he said. Kalanit Taub, a first responder, described a « horrific scene » with « nonstop people to care for. » « I saw 20 plus CPRs ongoing at the same time, » Taub told CNN. « Anywhere you looked, you saw another person doing CPR. » In the hours afterward, she saw people crying or staring into space, struggling to process what they had seen.
