Ranchi, Feb. 24: Shivratri today saw an impressive turnout of over one lakh devotees at Baidyanathdham in Deoghar and over 80,000 at Basukinathdham in nearby Dumka, among the best-known Shiv temples in India.

At Baidyanathdham, devotees began queuing up from 2am or so, though puja started from 4am.

Like during the holy Mondays of the month-long Shravani Mela in July-August, Deoghar district administration made extensive arrangements for crowd management today. DC Arava Rajkamal and other senior officials were on their toes, deploying police and magistrates and drone surveillance at strategic locations. The administration also put up large pandals to shelter devotees awaiting their turn.

"The queue of devotees was about 7km long, stretching up to BEd College. But, everything is under control. The puja might continue till 10 pm or so," DC Rajkamal said.

Dumka range DIG Akhilesh Kumar Jha added crowd control in Deoghar posed a challenge in the evening when devotees took out the traditional Shiv Barat, which included animals like oxen, elephants, horses and camels, snake charmers with their pet reptiles and many devotees in the guise of ghosts.

"Streets were flooded by onlookers. We banned traffic on certain roads," he said.

Dumka SP M.K. Patel said proceedings were smooth in and around Basukinathdham.

Over 10,000 devotees went to Omkareshwarnath temple in Khunti and over 5,000 at the Tanginath temple in Gumla.