More than 100 killed during stampede at religious gathering in ...

More than 100 people, mostly women and children, attending a religious gathering in northern India have been crushed to death during a stampede.

Chaos broke out after the event in Uttar Pradesh ended on Tuesday, where the crowd capacity was more than three times the permitted number.

Authorities say the death toll is expected to rise and many people remain hospitalised.

At least 116 people have died, most of them women and children, and many more are injured after a stampede at a religious gathering of thousands of people in northern India, in one of the country's worst such tragedies in years.

More than 150 were admitted to hospitals after the crush in a village in the Hathras district of the Uttar Pradesh state, about 200 km south-east of the national capital, New Delhi, where authorities said thousands had gathered in sweltering late-afternoon temperatures.

Medical official Umesh Tripathi said 25 of the people killed were women and said the death toll was expected to rise.

The stampede occurred when a crowd of devotees started pushing towards the stage after an event with a religious leader named Bhole Baba, to touch the preacher, said Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Yogi Adityanath.

Police officer Rajesh Singh said overcrowding may have been a factor.

Outside a hospital in the town of Etah, a crowd of hundreds was gathered, many waiting to identify their loved ones.

A man crouched on the ground crying as he told the ABC his 13-year-old daughter had been killed.

A distressed crowd waited to identify loved ones.(ABC News: Bhat Burhan)

She had gone to the religious gathering with her maternal aunt, who also died in the stampede.

"She did not reach back home so I drove to her. I tried calling her, but it wasn't going through. It was busy or switched off. I ran around and I found out this had happened," the father said.

He said his wife and three daughters did not yet know.

Several men wept as they watched medical staff transport the body of an elderly woman from the morgue to the main hospital for a post-mortem.

Family members of those killed are devastated as they try to come to terms with the tragedy.(ABC News: Bhat Burhan)

At the same time, bodies were being released to family members so they could take them home and perform last rites.

Distressing videos uploaded to social media show people carrying bodies of those killed or injured in the crush to hospital on motorbikes, on the back of trucks, on auto rickshaws or their backs.

Local news reports cited authorities who said heat and suffocation in the tent could have been a factor

Initial reports suggested more than 15,000 people had gathered for the event, which had permission to host about 5,000.

Another senior state official, Chaitra V, told local media that people may have lost their footing as they sought water in the heat.

"There was wet mud at one place where people may have slipped," she said.

"Also because of the heat, people may have made their way to the spot where water was kept and that could have caused the incident as well," she said.

One survivor, Jyoti, who goes only by her first name, told local media the stampede happened quickly as soon as the event ended.

"Everyone was in a rush to leave," she said.

"There was no way out and people were falling on each other."

Bodies were being brought to hospitals and morgues by trucks and private vehicles.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered condolences to the families of the dead and said the federal government was working with state authorities to ensure the injured received help.

Uttar Pradesh's Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath called the stampede "heart-wrenching" in a post on social media platform X.

He said authorities were investigating.

"Look what happened and how many people have lost their lives," Rajesh Kumar Jha, a member of parliament, told reporters.

"Will anyone be accountable?"

He said the stampede was a failure by the state and federal governments to manage large crowds, adding that "people will keep on dying" if authorities do not take safety protocols seriously enough.

Family members identify loved ones.(ABC News: Bhat Burhan)

The stampede took place about 350 kilometres south-west of the state capital Lucknow.

Deadly stampedes are relatively common during Indian religious festivals, where large crowds gather in small areas with few safety measures.

They are often blamed on poor management.

A stampede in central India in 2013 killed 115 people, while nearly 250 died in 2008 and more than 340 were killed during an annual pilgrimage in the western state of Maharashtra in 2005, according to local media reports.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the federal government was assisting the state and announced a compensation of 200,000 rupees ($3,590) to the families of the dead and 50,000 rupees ($898) to those injured.

ABC/wires