Thir­ty-six bod­ies have been found in­side a well at a Hin­du tem­ple in cen­tral In­dia af­ter dozens of peo­ple at­tend­ing a fes­ti­val fell in­to the mud­dy wa­ter when its cov­er col­lapsed, of­fi­cials said Fri­day.

Video of Thurs­day’s col­lapse at the tem­ple com­plex in In­dore in Mad­hya Pradesh state showed chaos af­ter­ward, with peo­ple rush­ing away. An ex­ca­va­tor pulled down a wall of the decades-old tem­ple to help peo­ple flee.

Near­ly 140 res­cuers, in­clud­ing army per­son­nel, used ropes and lad­ders to pull the bod­ies from the well af­ter pump­ing out the wa­ter. A nar­row path and de­bris in the well made the task dif­fi­cult.

Rescuers work at the site of a structure built over an old temple well that collapsed Thursday as a large crowd of devotees gathered for the Ram Navami Hindu festival, in Indore, India, Friday, March 31, 2023. Thirty-five bodies have been found inside a well at a Hindu temple in central India after dozens of people fell into the muddy water when the well's cover collapsed. (AP Photo)

“We have re­cov­ered 36 bod­ies and every­body is ac­count­ed for now,” Pawan Ku­mar Shar­ma, com­mis­sion­er of the lo­cal mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tion, told The As­so­ci­at­ed Press.

The sec­re­tary of the tem­ple board was among the dead and the pres­i­dent is re­cov­er­ing from in­juries, Shar­ma said.

People carry bodies of victims of an accident, when a structure built over an old temple well collapsed Thursday as a large crowd of devotees gathered for the Ram Navami Hindu festival, in Indore, India, Friday, March 31, 2023. Thirty-five bodies have been found inside a well at a Hindu temple in central India after dozens of people fell into the muddy water when the well's cover collapsed. (AP Photo)

Po­lice brought a case of cul­pa­ble homi­cide not amount­ing to mur­der, but no ar­rests have been made so far, he said.

Wit­ness­es said a large crowd of devo­tees had thronged the tem­ple to per­form a fire rit­u­al and cel­e­brate the fes­ti­val for the de­ity Ra­ma.

Dozens of peo­ple fell in­to the wa­ter when the struc­ture col­lapsed and were cov­ered by falling de­bris, po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Makrand De­oskar said.

Kan­tib­hai Pa­tel, pres­i­dent of a res­i­dents’ as­so­ci­a­tion, told re­porters that au­thor­i­ties were slow to re­act and the first am­bu­lance reached the spot an hour af­ter the alert.

The struc­ture ap­par­ent­ly caved in be­cause it could not han­dle the weight of the large crowd, said the state’s top elect­ed of­fi­cial, Shiv­raj Singh Chauhan. He or­dered an in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

A team of army res­cuers joined the op­er­a­tion on Thurs­day night. The Times of In­dia news­pa­per re­port­ed the res­cue work was ex­pe­dit­ed af­ter un­der­wa­ter cam­eras showed bod­ies float­ing in the mud­dy wa­ters of the well.

Chauhan said 33 of the bod­ies had been iden­ti­fied. Six­teen of the peo­ple who were in­jured re­mained hos­pi­tal­ized Fri­day.

Sob­bing rel­a­tives claimed the bod­ies of the vic­tims and vis­it­ed the hos­pi­tal where the in­jured were be­ing treat­ed.

Tem­ple au­thor­i­ties had stopped us­ing the well years ago and cov­ered the mouth with iron grills and tiles.

Mu­nic­i­pal au­thor­i­ties in Jan­u­ary or­dered the tem­ple own­ers to re­move the cov­er­ing of the well be­cause it was an un­safe and unau­tho­rized struc­ture, but tem­ple au­thor­i­ties ig­nored the warn­ing, the news­pa­per said.

Build­ing col­laps­es are com­mon in In­dia be­cause of poor con­struc­tion and a fail­ure to ob­serve reg­u­la­tions.

In Oc­to­ber, a cen­tu­ry-old ca­ble sus­pen­sion bridge col­lapsed in­to a riv­er in the west­ern state of Gu­jarat, send­ing hun­dreds of peo­ple plung­ing in­to the wa­ter and killing at least 132 in one of the worst ac­ci­dents in the coun­try in the past decade.

By ASHOK SHAR­MA

NEW DEL­HI (AP)