They said thousands of people, most of them elderly, had gathered outside the famous Jagannath temple in Puri, 65 km (40 miles) south of the state capital Bhubaneswar on the eve of an auspicious festival.
The rush occurred when the temple gates were opened at around at around 6 a.m. Senior police officer Sanjib Panda told reporters about 15,000 people had surged into the temple in Puri, a major Hindu pilgrimage site in India.

Copyright Reuters, 2006