A senior police officer said at least 30 people died as a crowd panicked at the Hindu Kumbh Mela mega-festival in the northern city of Prayagraj.

People were trampled as pilgrims at the Maha Kumbh Mela, one of the world’s biggest gatherings, gathered where the Ganges and Yamuna Rivers meet, officials said.

Bodies, clothes and bags lay scattered on the ground after a deadly stampede at the world's largest gathering of humanity, the Maha Kumbh Mela in northern India, on one of the most auspicious days in Hinduism.

PRAYAGRAJ, India — At least 30 people were killed and many more injured in a stampede at the world’s largest religious gathering early Wednesday, police said, as millions of pilgrims rushed to dip in sacred waters during the Maha Kumbh festival in northern India.

Swarming throngs of devotees bathed in rivers at the world's biggest religious gathering in India on Thursday, undeterred by a stampede a day earlier that killed at least 30 people.The Kumbh Mela attracts tens of millions of Hindu faithful from around India every 12 years to the northern city of Prayagraj,

Moments before a deadly stampede at the world's biggest religious gathering in India, Hindu devotees queuing to take a spiritual bath in a river said they pleaded with police to open barricaded routes to thin out a surging crowd.