Andhra Pradesh has been shaken by a series of unfortunate temple tragedies in 2025, resulting in the loss of 22 lives and leaving around 100 individuals injured. The most recent incident occurred on Saturday in Kasibugga, where a railing collapse on a staircase at the Venkateswara temple led to a devastating crush, claiming nine lives and injuring over two dozen people.
Earlier in the year, the state witnessed two other significant temple accidents. In April, a wall weakened by rain gave way at the Sri Varaha Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy temple in Simhachalam, causing seven fatalities. Before that, a stampede in January at Bairagi Patteda in Tirupati, during the Vaikunta Dwara Darshanam event at the Sri Venkateswara Swamy Temple, resulted in six deaths and nearly 40 injuries among the large crowds gathered for tickets.
These temple disasters compounded a week of severe calamities for Andhra Pradesh, which also included a bus fire in Kurnool that killed 19 people and a Rs 5,244-crore loss from the cyclonic storm ‘Montha’. The end of October and beginning of November proved particularly deadly, with a combination of natural disasters and accidents leaving a significant toll on the state.