Parents bury disabled kids up to their necks in goat POO and dirt during solar eclipse in bizarre ritual to ‘cure’ them
SUPERSTITIOUS parents desperate to “cure” their kids of disabilities buried them alive in mud and goat POO.
Bizarre video from India shows terrified youngsters up to their necks in the smelly gunk during a rare annular solar eclipse, when the Moon turned the Sun into a spectacular “ring of fire”.
Skywatchers across the Middle East and Asia watched the spectacular phenomenon on December 26.
But in the Indian village of Taj-Sultanpur, superstitious parents buried their children in pits during the rare annular eclipse, when a thin outer ring of the Sun is visible as it forms a “ring of fire” around the Moon.
Residents said all the entombed children were disabled and their parents believed that by burying them during the eclipse, they would be “cured”.
The crying youngsters, aged from three years, were buried neck-deep in mud containing goat poo, reported the Deccan Herald.
One girl’s dad said: “We have followed what our elders have told us, as medical treatment has not helped, [so] we decided to try this.
“We don’t know whether it will cure our child or not, but wanted to give it a try.”
The publication said that children were “seen struggling to endure the heat generated from the manure”.
When cops and district officials were alerted to the kids’ plight, they rushed to the burial ground and freed them from their earthen prisons.
Official sources identified at least three children – Puja Khemaling, five, three-year-old Sanjana Suryakanth and 11-year-old Kaveri Mallappa – as victims of the cruel practice.
Reports suggested that at least three more kids had also been buried alive as part of the obscure tradition.
After being rescued, their parents were warned against performing any similar rituals in future.
Child Welfare Committee chairman Reena D’Souza said all the children would get appropriate medical attention.
On Boxing Day, skywatchers in Saudi Arabia as well as southern India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia looked upwards as the Sun formed a ring of fire around the Moon.
In Banda Aceh, Indonesia, thousands of people cheered and clapped as the Sun transformed into a dark orb for more than two minutes, briefly plunging the sky into darkness.
Hundreds of others prayed at nearby mosques.
What is an annular solar eclipse?
An annular solar eclipse is a special type of solar eclipse, explains Tanya Hill, senior curator (Astronomy), of Museums Victoria in Australia.
During an annular eclipse, a thin outer ring of the Sun is still visible as it forms a ‘ring of fire’ around the Moon.
It occurs when the Moon passes directly in front of the Sun – as it does during a total solar eclipse.
But in this instance, the Moon is too small to fully obscure the Sun from view, she explains in The Conversation.
So, instead of eclipsing or hiding the Sun, the Moon turns it into a spectacular ‘ring of fire’ that encircles the dark Moon.
This is because during an annular solar eclipse, the Moon is too far from the Earth to block out the entire Sun.
It’s a quirk of nature that Earth has a moon that is the right size – about 400 times smaller than the Sun.
And it is at the right distance, about 400 times closer to Earth than the Sun is, for a total solar eclipse to occur.
But since the Moon follows an elliptical orbit around the Earth, its distance varies slightly throughout its monthly orbit.
If the Moon happens to be at or near the most distant part of its orbit during a solar eclipse, then the Moon will appear slightly smaller in the sky – leading to an annular solar eclipse.