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A mass singalong of 160,000 people in the Indian city of Hyderabad, in Andhra Pradesh, has broken a 72-year-old record for the world's largest choir.

Participants sang religious hymns by "saint-composer" Annamacharya for just under 40 minutes at an event on Sunday.

An adjudicator from Guinness World Records said the audience was "ecstatic" to learn of their record.

The previous record was set in 1937 by a choir of 60,000 at a contest held in what is now Wroclaw, Poland.

An official Guinness World Record adjudicator, Raymond Marshall, was at the gathering to present the record certificate.

He described the event as a "highlight of this year's record-breaking around the world".

The massive audience in Hyderabad sang seven compositions by Annamacharya as part of the effort to break the world record.

The event was organised by the Andhra Pradesh state cultural council and a non-governmental organisation, Silicon Andhra, to commemorate the 601st anniversary of the birth of Annamacharya, one of the earliest "saint composers" of southern India.