In a crowd, don't push.
In a dense crowd - a platform, a gate, a gathering - don't push forward. Pressure builds body against body until people can't breathe or even stand.
Here's the science
- What happensPushing forward in a dense, tightly packed crowd
- HowIn a very dense crowd, pushing and leaning pass horizontal force from body to body, and that pressure squeezes people's chests so they cannot breathe
- SoCompressive asphyxia - the cause of virtually all crowd-crush deaths - as people are crushed where they stand
How it works - the size isn't measured hereGLOBAL
“Horizontal forces sufficient to cause compressive asphyxia are more dynamic as people push off against each other to obtain breathing space.”
A crowd-physics source explaining how crush deaths happen, not an India-specific casualty count; no official Indian stampede figure could be verified from a citable source for this card.
Source: Behaviour and Mechanics of Crowd Crush Disasters - Risk Frontiers (Paul Somerville)(checked 2026-07-18)
And when we do it
A crowd that moves in slow, patient steps lets everyone through - and everyone home.
You couldn't have known. Now you do.