At least 30 people were killed and many more injured in a stampede at the world’s largest religious gathering early Wednesday, authorities said, as millions of pilgrims rushed to bathe in hallowed waters during the Maha Kumbh festival in northern India. According to police official Vaibhav Krishna in Prayagraj, another 60 people were hurt and brought to hospitals. Wednesday was a holy day in the six-week Hindu celebration, with officials expecting a record 100 million devotees to take a ritual bath at the confluence of the Ganges, Yamuna, and the legendary Saraswati rivers. Hindus believe that a dip in the sacred location can wash them of their previous misdeeds and end the process of reincarnation.

Yogi Adityanath, Uttar Pradesh’s top elected official, said in a televised statement that the rush occurred when pilgrims attempted to jump barricades set up for a procession of holy men. The event’s biggest feature is the thousands of ash-smeared Hindu ascetics who march in enormous procession to the confluence to bathe. Indian officials hesitated more than 16 hours to provide casualty estimates, despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi acknowledging the loss of life, calling the situation “extremely sad” and expressing his condolences.

Suddenly, there was pushing in the crowd, and we became stuck. “A lot of us fell down, and the crowd got out of control,” pilgrim Sarojini told the Press Trust of India news agency. “There was no chance for escape, there was pushing from all sides,” she told me. Families were lining up outside a makeshift hospital, hoping to hear word of missing loved ones. Clothing, blankets, and bags littered the scene of the stampede. Despite the rush, millions of people continued to flock to the 15-square-mile pilgrimage destination, despite police warnings over megaphones to avoid the confluence. Adityanath encouraged people to take baths on other riverbanks instead.

“The situation is now under control, but there is a massive crowd of pilgrims,” Adityanath said, adding that 90 million to 100 million pilgrims had visited the site. At 8 a.m., almost 30 million individuals had taken the holy bath. Wednesday, he said. The Maha Kumbh event, celebrated every 12 years, began on January 13. Authorities expect around 400 million people to visit the pilgrimage site in all. Nearly 150 million individuals have already attended, including Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Home Minister Amit Shah, and celebrities such as Coldplay’s Chris Martin. A large tent city has been created on the riverbanks to accommodate the millions of guests, including roads, electricity, water, 3,000 cooks, and 11 hospitals.

About 50,000 security people are stationed in the city to ensure law and order and control crowds, and more than 2,500 cameras monitor crowd movement and density to help officials avoid such crushes. Several opposition figures chastised the federal and state governments, both run by Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, and blamed the stampede on “mismanagement” and “VIP culture” — the latter referring to what they call special treatment for politicians and celebrities.

“The government should make better arrangements to meet the needs of ordinary devotees,” Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi posted on social media platform X.

The 45-day festival is an important cultural event for India’s Hindus, who account for roughly 80% of the country’s more than 1.4 billion population. It’s also a prestige event for Modi, whose ruling party claims to promote Hindu cultural symbols. Stampedes have occurred during previous Maha Kumbh festivals. In 2013, at least 40 pilgrims attending the event were killed in a stampede at a Prayagraj train station. Deadly stampedes are quite typical during Indian religious festivals, when big crowds congregate in tiny spaces. In July, thousands at a religious gathering in northern India stampeded into a tent camp in Hathras town, killing at least 116 people, the majority of whom were women and children.