STORY: More than 36 hours after a deadly stampede at India's Maha Kumbh Mela festival claimed dozens of lives, distraught relatives frantically searched hospitals and mortuaries for missing loved ones.

At least 17 people were killed and many more injured in a stampede at India's Maha Kumbh festival, the world's largest religious gathering, a doctor at a government hospital said, as tens of thousands of pilgrims rushed to dip in sacred river waters during the Hindu event.

Many were feared dead after millions of Hindu pilgrims at a huge Hindu festival in India rushed to bathe in holy river waters.

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.

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.