India, Oct. 18 -- In many ways, what happened at the Chorebagan Durga Puja pandal in Kolkata on Saturday that left at least 19 people dead and several injuries, was typical of other deadly stampedes over the years. The trigger itself may be unique to each stampede. What followed, however, has been common to many other stampedes: individuals slipping and falling, then panicking, jostling and falling over one another while looking for elusive exit routes in a crammed area.

The study of stampedes, which has picked up in recent decades, involves a lot more than the psychology of people moving haphazardly in a panic. More precisely, it is the study of crowd dynamics, of which stampede events are an inevitable part, that has become a diverse f...