On January 3, 2008, more than a hundred thousand people gathered at the Sri Durga Malleswara temple in southern India, setting the stage for disaster. When the crowd surged forward to garland a statue of the goddess Durga, six were trampled and killed. Disasters like this kill hundreds of people a year and have typically been hard to prevent. But now an intervention may be at hand, thanks to crowd simulations developed by Paul M. Torrens, a geographer at Arizona State University. Torrens's computer simulations let planners drop a few thousand virtual people into a burning building, then sit back and take notes-with heat coming only from the computer itself. The specific scenarios Torrens creates could show firefighters how to save the most people, tell architects where to place exits or barriers in stadiums, and guide police forces in corralling unruly mobs.
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机译：2008年1月3日，十万多人聚集在印度南部的Sri Durga Malleswara寺院，为灾难搭建了舞台。当人群涌向花环的杜尔加女神雕像的花环时，有六个被踩死并被杀死。像这样的灾难每年造成数百人死亡，通常很难预防。但是现在，由于亚利桑那州立大学地理学家保罗·托伦斯（Paul M. Torrens）开发的人群模拟，现在可能要进行干预了。 Torrens的计算机模拟功能使计划人员可以将数千名虚拟人放到燃烧的建筑物中，然后坐下来做笔记-热量仅来自计算机本身。托伦斯创造的特定场景可以向消防员展示如何拯救最多的人，告诉建筑师在体育场的出口或障碍物的放置位置，以及指导警察束缚暴徒。
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