The Uttar Pradesh government has ordered a judicial probe into the deaths of at least 30 people in stampedes at India’s Kumbh Mela festival, where millions of Hindu devotees gathered for a ritual bath at the confluence of three sacred rivers.

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.

Nearly 40 bodies were brought to a hospital morgue near the site of a stampede at the Maha Kumbh festival in India's northern state of Uttar Pradesh, three police sources told Reuters. There has been no official announcement of casualties from the local government,