'Mother, save me!' Ranjani Kumari's daughter shouted as the crowd surged at the world's largest religious gathering.
"But I could not save her because I was stuck in the crowd and she got crushed and died," Ms Kumari said.
Her eldest daughter was among at least 30 people killed in the "stampede" at the Kumbh Mela festival in India.
The six-week festival is the single-biggest milestone on the Hindu religious calendar, expected to draw more than 400 million pilgrims.
Millions of people were expected to be present on Wednesday for a sacred day of ritual bathing in the river when catastrophe struck.
As pilgrims rushed to be the first to participate in a day of ritual bathing, a participant said people sleeping and seated on the ground near the water were trampled by a crowd in the pre-dawn darkness.
"The entire crowd fell on top of me, trampling me as it moved forward," pilgrim Renu Devi said.
"When the crowd surged, elderly people and women were crushed, and no one came forward to help."
The festival's special executive officer, Akanksha Rana, told the Press Insitute of India that a "stampede-like situation" occurred after a festival barrier broke.
At least 30 people died, according to state officials in India.
Rescue teams carrying victims from the site weaved through piles of clothes, shoes and other belongings abandoned in the tragedy.
Police were seen carrying stretchers bearing the bodies of victims draped with thick blankets.
"Thirty devotees have unfortunately died," senior police officer Vaibhav Krishna told reporters during an evening news conference at the festival.
"Ninety injured were taken to the hospital."
Distraught pilgrims search for their loved ones
In the aftermath, relatives queued up to identify those killed in the stampede.
Ms Kumari sobbed as she sought to collect her 21-year-old daughter's body from Motila Nehru Medical College morgue in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh.
Almost 12 years ago, Ms Kumari's husband died of a heart attack, and she has since been raising her three daughters alone.
She worked hard to give her eldest daughter a bright future.
"I wanted my daughter to study … she was very good in studies … I had worked very hard for her … my daughter was great," Ms Kumari said.
"I have become very helpless without her."
Witnesses described a mass of people rushing to take an early morning bath at the confluence of the Ganges, the Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati rivers.
Hindus believe that a dip at the holy site can cleanse them of past sins and end the process of reincarnation.
Officials had attempted to divert crowds away from the disaster site, instructing them to bathe at other locations.
"We humbly request all devotees do not come to the main bathing spot," one festival staffer said.
"Please cooperate with security personnel."
But even as news of the stampede spread, crowds pushed through cordons to move towards the river.
"My family got scared, so we're leaving," attendee Sanjay Nishad said.
For others, there was no escaping the crush
Jagwanti Rajghar, 40, said she lost her mother and sister-in-law in the stampede.
Holding her niece, she explained how her sister-in-law risked her life to keep her child out of harm's way.
"During the stampede, the child's mother said 'Even if I am dying, at least save my daughter', she started shouting in the crowd and threw her (daughter) in the crowd," she said.
"And everyone kept passing her and put her on the barricades and she was rescued … and my mother and sister-in-law were trampled by the crowd."
Calls for accountability after the tragic stampede
Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the stampede "extremely sad" and offered his "deepest condolences" to relatives of those killed.
"I wish for the speedy recovery of all injured," he said.
It is not the first time the festival has seen casualties. The last time Kumbh Mela was held in 2013, about 36 people died.
One of the largest death tolls in a crowd-related disaster globally also occurred during the Kumbh Mela in 1954 when more than 400 people died after they were trampled or drowned.
Several opposition leaders criticised the federal and the state governments, which are both led by Mr Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party.
They blamed the stampede on "mismanagement" and "VIP culture" — the latter claiming preferential treatment was provided for politicians and celebrities.
"The government should make better arrangements to meet the needs of common devotees," Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi wrote on social platform X.
Before this year's Kumbh Mela, festival organisers compared its scale to a temporary country forecasting up to 400 million pilgrims would visit before the final day on February 26.
This year, police had installed hundreds of cameras at the festival site and on roads leading to the sprawling encampment and used a fleet of drones to monitor the crowd.
The surveillance network feeds into a command and control centre meant to alert staff if sections of the crowd get so concentrated that they pose a safety threat.
University student Ruchi Bharti said: "If you see advertisements it seems like the government is providing world class facilities."
"But this stampede proved that was all a lie."
ABC/Wires
