India’s Maha Kumbh festival, the world’s largest religious gathering, by the numbers

NEW DELHI (AP) — Hindu devotees, mystics and holy men and women have gathered in India’s northern city of Prayagraj for the Maha Kumbh festival, the world’s largest religious gathering.

The festival — site of a stampede on Wednesday — is held every 12 years at the confluence of the Ganges, the Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati rivers. Hindus take a series of ritual baths at the confluence to cleanse them of their past sins and free them from reincarnation.

Here’s a look at the festival by the numbers:

400 million

The number of people expected in Prayagraj for the festival over the course of 45 days. 400 million people — more than the population of the United States — are expected to throng the festival. That is around 200 times the 2 million pilgrims who were in Saudi Arabia for the annual Hajj pilgrimage last year.

The festival started on Jan. 13 with tens of thousands of naked Hindu ascetics and millions of pilgrims taking dips in freezing water at the confluence of the sacred rivers. Nearly 150 million people have already attended, including Defense Minister Rajnath Singh and Home Minister Amit Shah and Coldplay’s Chris Martin.

4,000 hectares

The total expanse of the pilgrimage site. A vast ground along the banks of the rivers has been converted into a sprawling tent city equipped with more than 3,000 kitchens and 150,000 toilets. Divided into 25 sections and spreading over 40 square kilometers (15 square miles), the tent city also has housing, roads, electricity and water, communication towers, and 11 hospitals.

Indian Railways is operating more than 90 special trains on nearly 3,300 trips during the festival to transport devotees, in addition to regular trains.

$765 million

Money being spent on the festival and its infrastructure. Uttar Pradesh state is governed by Yogi Adityanath — an influential Hindu monk and a popular hard-line Hindu politician— and he has allocated more than $765 million for this year’s event. The festival area is dotted with giant billboards and posters showing him and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

India’s political parties and leaders capitalize on the festival to woo the country’s Hindus, who comprise nearly 80% of India’s more than 1.4 billion people. Modi and his Hindu nationalist party are rooted in Hindu supremacy.

50,000

The number of security personnel deployed at the pilgrimage site. Authorities have turned the festival area into a fortress, deploying about 50,000 security personnel to maintain law and order and manage crowds. The area is also monitored with 2,751 CCTV cameras, including AI-enabled ones.

The cameras send crowd movement and density information to four central control rooms. Innovative measures such as AI-enabled cameras, anti-drone systems, and tethered drones have also been deployed for heightened surveillance.

Ashok Sharma, The Associated Press