India opens giant Hindu festival for 400m pilgrims

Vast crowds of Hindu pilgrims in India bathed in sacred waters on Monday as the Kumbh Mela festival opened, with organisers expecting 400 million people — the largest gathering of humanity.

The millennia-old Kumbh Mela, a show of religious piety and ritual bathing — and a logistical challenge of staggering proportions — is held at the site where the Ganges, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati rivers meet.

In the cool pre-dawn gloom, pilgrims surged forward to begin bathing in the waters.