New Delhi - Parents wailed for their dead children as relatives identified their loved ones Monday, a day after a stampede at a Hindu temple in India's northern state of Himachal Pradesh claimed 145 lives, officials and news reports said.

Rumours of a landslide caused the stampede at the hilltop shrine of Naina Devi in the Bilaspur district, 320 kilometres north of New Delhi. At least 80 victims were women and children.

"My brother's entire family has been ruined," an inconsolable Balbir Singh told the IANS news agency at the state-run Civil Hospital in neighbouring Punjab state, where the bodies were brought. "All my three nephews were killed in the stampede."

"They had come with me to visit the temple," he said. "I do not know how I will face my family when I return home."

Wails of survivors and relatives rent the air as the bodies were identified one by one, and the police and hospital staff completed legal and post-mortem examination formalities.

The bodies of the victims were brought in heaps loaded on private trucks from the shrine to the hospital, which ran out of space to accommodate them. Many bodies lay in the facility's corridors and in the open.

"There have been heart-rending scenes here," Punjab police official RN Dhoke told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. "Since the morning, terrified relatives have been pouring in from Punjab and adjoining Haryana state to claim the bodies."

"So far, 129 bodies have been identified and were handed over to relatives," he said. "Sixteen bodies are still to be claimed."

Of the 48 injured, 22 were still being treated. Dhoke said most of them suffered fractures and none was in serious condition.

As many as 25,000 devotees had gathered at the temple, which is among the most popular shrines in northern India, for a nine-day Sharavan Navratras fair, which began Saturday.

The Himachal government has initiated an investigation to look into whether adequate safety provisions were in place, state Additional Director General of Police Daljit Singh Manhas said.

"The Himachal Pradesh state government has also announced that it will improve the infrastructure at the shrine to ensure maximum safety of the pilgrims," Manhas said.

Locals, however, alleged that lack of security around the temple led to the incident. The temple was the scene of a similar tragedy in 1981 when 53 devotees were killed in a stampede, Indian media reported.

On Sunday, thousands of worshippers were climbing the path to the temple when the stampede occurred. Devotees returning from the temple ran into pilgrims coming up, and later, they tried to outpace each other to find an escape route.

As people ran helter-skelter and tried to jump fences to save themselves, many women and children were trampled.

The path leading to the temple had a tragic look after the stampede as the bodies of children, women and men lay in slush, some of them clutching offerings.

Temple authorities said the devotees were continuing their pilgrimage to the shrine but in fewer numbers after hearing of the tragedy and also because of heavy rains in the area.

Temple stampedes are not uncommon in India, where huge crowds gather to pray on auspicious days at religious complexes where the approach roads and entrances are usually narrow.

The Naina Devi incident was among the worst stampedes in India in recent years. In January 2005, 265 Hindu worshippers were killed in a stampede near a temple in the western state of Maharashtra.

There have been at least three other fatal stampedes in the country so far in 2008. They claimed more than 21 lives in Hindu temples in India's southern, central and eastern states. (dpa)