At least 717 people were killed, and 863 were injured, in a stampede near Mecca, Saudi Arabia, on Thursday morning.
The deaths - at an intersection in Mina, about six miles east of the city - occurred around 9 am on the first day of Eid al-Adha, one of the holiest holidays in the Muslim calendar, and as millions of Muslims were making their pilgrimage, or hajj, to Mecca.
It appeared to be the deadliest accident during the hajj since 1990, when 1,426 pilgrims perished in a stampede in a tunnel linking Mecca and Mina. And it occurred less than two weeks after a large construction crane toppled and crashed into the Grand Mosque in Mecca, killing at least 111 people and injuring 394 others.
Thursday's stampede is likely to intensify fears that the kingdom does not have the transportation and public safety infrastructure to channel and protect what is the world's largest regular human migration.
The high death toll is likely to embarrass the Saudi government, which considers itself the leader of the Muslim world and takes great pride in hosting the millions of pilgrims who visit the holy cities of Mecca and Medina each year. One of the titles of the Saudi monarch is "custodian of the two holy mosques," referring to his personal duty to protect the sites and the pilgrims.
The Saudi civil defence directorate reported the deaths on Twitter and said that two medical centres had been opened in Mina to treat the injured. More than 4,000 emergency workers were sent to the scene, and hundreds of people were taken to four hospitals.
The accident on Thursday, witnesses reported on social media, occurred around the area where pilgrims go to perform a ritual - the Stoning of the Devil, a re-enactment of a story from the Quran involving the Prophet Abraham - that takes place during the hajj.
|
DISASTERS AT ANNUAL HAJ PILGRIMAGE At least four Indians were killed in the Mecca stampede, consulate said in Jeddah, PTI reported. A few other disasters during the pilgrimage |
|
Videos of the aftermath shared on social media showed scores of lifeless bodies in the street, many covered with the simple white garments pilgrims wear during the hajj. One video showed a heap of men lying atop each other, while rescue workers in fluorescent yellow vests worked to separate the dead from the living, and to rescue any survivors.
Mina provides temporary accommodation, with tens of thousands of air-conditioned tents, for many of the more than two million pilgrims who make the hajj to circumnavigate the Kaaba, which sits at the centre of the Grand Mosque.
Mina has been the site of multiple deadly accidents over the years.
After the crane collapse, the Saudi government punished the Saudi Binladin Group - a construction conglomerate working on the mosque expansion - by denying it future contracts and banning travel for some of its executives.
A vast majority of pilgrims are not from Saudi Arabia and have not been able to exert pressure on the government to improve crowd control or public safety around the hajj. Professor Rasheed said that officials in the kingdom had avoided responsibility in part by citing the Islamic doctrine that anyone who dies during the pilgrimage - which a Muslim is expected to make at least once in a lifetime - goes to heaven.
On Thursday, the Saudi civil defence directorate said on Twitter, "We ask God to grant the martyrs his mercy."
© 2015 The New York Times News Service
