A pre-dawn human stampede at the world’s largest religious gathering has killed at least 30 people in India.

Many more were injured after a surging crowd spilled out of a police cordon and trampled bystanders.

Deadly crowd incidents are a frequent occurrence at Indian religious festivals, including the Kumbh Mela, which attracts tens of millions of devotees every 12 years to the northern city of Prayagraj.

As pilgrims rushed to participate in a sacred day of ritual bathing, people sleeping and sitting on the ground near the rivers told AFP they were trampled by huge swells of devotees coming towards them in the darkness.

“The entire crowd fell on top of me, trampling me as it moved forward,” pilgrim Renu Devi, 48, told AFP.

“When the crowd surged, elderly people and women were crushed, and no one came forward to help.”

Rescue teams carrying victims from the accident site weaved through piles of clothes, shoes and other discarded belongings.

Police were seen carrying stretchers bearing the bodies of victims draped with thick blankets.

“Thirty devotees have unfortunately died,” senior police officer Vaibhav Krishna told reporters during an evening news conference at the festival. “Ninety injured were taken to the hospital.”

Krishna’s briefing came nearly 18 hours after the stampede and was the first official death toll given by authorities.

Festivities had otherwise been allowed to continue almost as normal during the day, with millions still trekking to the riverbanks to immerse themselves in the water.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the stampede “extremely sad” and offered his “deepest condolences” to relatives of those killed.

“I wish for the speedy recovery of all injured,” he added.

Dozens of relatives were anxiously waiting for news outside a large tent serving as a purpose-built hospital for the festival near the disaster site.

The six-week Kumbh Mela is the single biggest milestone on the Hindu religious calendar.

Wednesday marks one of the holiest days in the festival, when saffron-clad holy men lead millions in a sin-cleansing ritual of bathing at the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers in tandem with a planetary alignment in the Solar System.

Officials had attempted to divert crowds away from the disaster site, instructing them to bathe at other locations.

“We humbly request all devotees do not come to the main bathing spot,” said one festival staffer, his voice crackling through his megaphone.

“Please cooperate with security personnel.”

But even as news of the stampede spread, crowds pushed through cordons to move towards the river, shrugging off aggressive orders from police to turn back.

Officials from the Uttar Pradesh state government, responsible for staging the festival, said millions had participated in the ritual bathing through the day.

Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi blamed the disaster on poor crowd control that prioritised the comfort of distinguished visitors.

“Mismanagement and the administration’s special focus on VIP movement instead of common devotees are responsible for this tragic incident,” he wrote on social media.

Railway police Superintendent Ashtabhuja Singh told AFP that special train services taking pilgrims to Prayagraj were still running, after earlier reports that they had been halted because of crowding in the city.

“My family got scared, so we’re leaving,” attendee Sanjay Nishad told AFP.

The Kumbh Mela is rooted in a mythological Hindu battle between deities and demons for control of a pitcher containing the nectar of immortality.

Organisers have likened the scale of this year’s festival to a temporary country, forecasting up to 400 million pilgrims would visit before the final day on February 26.

Police this year installed hundreds of cameras at the festival site and on roads leading to the sprawling encampment, mounted on poles and a fleet of overhead drones.

The surveillance network feeds into a sophisticated command and control centre meant to alert staff if sections of the crowd get so concentrated that they pose a safety threat.

“If you see advertisements it seems like the Government is providing world-class facilities,” university student Ruchi Bharti told AFP not far from the riverbank.

“But this stampede proved that was all a lie.”

More than 400 people died after they were trampled or drowned at the Kumbh Mela on a single day of the festival in 1954, one of the largest tolls in a crowd-related disaster globally.

Another 36 people were crushed to death in 2013, the last time the festival was staged in Prayagraj.

-Agence France-Presse