Dozens of people died in a stampede before dawn at the Maha Kuma Mila Festival in northern India, Wednesday.

Tens of millions of Hindus gathered to dive into water in the most important days of the festival, which lasts 6 weeks.

Reuters counted 39 bodies in the morgue of the local hospital, where the bodies still reach them 12 hours after the crowd flows towards the two rivers, where immersion in the water is considered a particularly sacred.

The stampede occurred in the festival in the state of Uttar Pradesh, northern India.

Veibah Krishna, the senior police official, said when contacting him, to obtain a comment that the police cannot provide official numbers because they are busy dealing with the crowds.

Two police sources said that all 39 victims were died in the stampede witnessed by the largest human gathering in the world.

Three police sources confirmed that the death toll reached about 40 people.

Krishna explained to reporters that 90 people were taken to hospital after the stampede.

Relatives of the victims lined up in queues to determine the identities of those who were killed in the stampede and voices demanding that the authorities and politicians be held accountable.

The state government praised the police, saying that "their quick and effective response ... prevented a possible tragedy."

An official at the SRN Hospital in Brigrag, where some of the injured were transferred, said that the deaths either caused heart attacks or as a result of the inability of people with diseases such as diabetes to withstand.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered his condolences to the "murids who lost their loved ones" and said that local officials help the victims "in every possible way", without specifying the death toll.

Officials said that the Hindu festival is expected to attract about 400 million people in total, compared to the Hajj season in Saudi Arabia, which attracted 1.8 million people last year.

Officials said that about 200 million people attended the festival since it started two weeks ago, by Tuesday, and added that more than 57 million people dived until (1030 GMT) today, Wednesday.

A similar stampede occurred when the festival was held last time in 2013, killing at least 36, most of them women.