(Changes slug adding STAMPEDE) (Reuters) -Multiple casualties were feared after a barrier broke at a Hindu religious festival, the Maha Kumbh Mela, in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday,

It was not immediately clear what triggered the panic at the festival where devotees from across India had congregated to bathe at the confluence of the Ganges, the Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati rivers.

A stampede at the world's largest religious gathering in India killed at least 15 people with many more injured, a doctor at the Kumbh Mela festival in Prayagraj told AFP Wednesday. More than 400 people died after being trampled or drowned at the Kumbh Mela on a single day of the festival in 1954,