The stench of raw meat hung in the air and pools of blood dotted the muddy ground yesterday as what is thought to be the world’s biggest animal sacrifice swung into action in a remote area of Nepal.

Efforts from activists and officials were expected to cut the death toll from the 200,000 butchered at the last Gadhimai Festival five years ago, but thousands of creatures were still set to be killed over the two days.

The event in honour of a Hindu goddess kicked off in the early hours amid tight security, with the ceremonial slaughter of a goat, rat, chicken, pig and a pigeon. A local shaman then offered blood from five points of his body. Some 200 butchers with sharpened swords and knives then walked into a walled arena bigger than a football field that held several thousand buffalo as excited pilgrims climbed trees and walls to catch a glimpse.

“We had tried not to support it but people have faith in the tradition and have come here with their offerings,” Birendra Prasad Yadav from the festival organising committee told AFP. Thousands of goats were also bound for sacrifice—mostly by having their throats slit—as well as pigs and even some rats. The pilgrims could either take the remains to cook or leave them for organisers to bury.

Thousands of worshippers from Nepal and neighbouring India have spent days sleeping out in the open and offering prayers ahead of the event in Bariyarpur village, close to the Indian border.

“I believe in the goddess. My mother had asked her for the good health of my son,” one of them, Rajesh Kumar Das, 30, told AFP, holding a goat in his hand.

Some 2,000 police personnel were patrolling the village and the field where sacrifices were taking place to control crowds gathered to watch.