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717 pilgrims dead in hajj stampede
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AT least 717 people were killed and hundreds more injured in a stampede at the hajj in Saudi Arabia yesterday, one of the worst tragedies to have struck the annual Muslim pilgrimage.
The stampede, the second deadly accident to hit the pilgrims this month following a crane collapse in Mecca, broke out during the symbolic stoning of the devil ritual, the Saudi civil defense service said.
Bodies of pilgrims wearing traditional white clothing were left scattered by the crush, surrounded by discarded shoes, flattened water bottles and umbrellas that had been used for protection from the sun.
The civil defense service said it was still counting the dead, who included pilgrims from different countries, and that at least 863 people had also been hurt.
Nearly 2 million people are attending the hajj, one of the largest annual gatherings in the world.
Iran said at least 43 of its citizens were dead and it accused Saudi Arabia of safety errors that caused the accident.
But a Saudi minister blamed the pilgrims, saying they had not followed the rules.
“Many pilgrims move without respecting the timetables” set for the hajj, Health Minister Khaled al-Falih told El-Ekhbariya television. “If the pilgrims had followed instructions, this type of accident could have been avoided,” he said.
The stampede began at around 9am, shortly after the civil defense service said on Twitter that it was dealing with a “crowding” incident in Mina, about five kilometers from Mecca.
Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims had converged on Mina to throw pebbles at one of three walls representing Satan, for the last major ritual of the hajj which officially ends on Sunday.
A hospital official told reporters that the incident happened outside the Jamarat Bridge structure, where the stoning takes place. A group of pilgrims leaving the area collided with another group that was either moving in the opposite direction or camped outside, the official said.
A Sudanese pilgrim in Mina said this year’s hajj was the most poorly organized of four he had attended.
“People were already dehydrated and fainting” before the stampede, he said.
People “were tripping all over each other,” he added.
Helicopters were flying overhead and ambulances were rushing the injured to hospital. At one hospital, a steady stream of ambulances discharged pilgrims on stretchers.
The incident came as the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims marked Eid al-Adha, the Feast of Sacrifice, the most important holiday on the Islamic calendar.
It was the second major accident this year for hajj pilgrims, after a crane collapsed on September 11 at Mecca’s Grand Mosque, Islam’s holiest site, killing 109 people.
The hajj is among the five pillars of Islam, and every capable Muslim must perform it at least once in a lifetime.
For years the pilgrimage was marred by stampedes and fires, but it had been largely incident-free for nearly a decade following safety improvements.
In the last major incident in January 2006, 364 pilgrims were killed in a stampede during the stoning ritual.
In 1990, a huge stampede in a tunnel at Mina after a ventilation system failure killed 1,426 pilgrims.
Yesterday’s tragedy occurred outside the five-story Jamarat Bridge, which was erected in the past decade at a cost of over US$1 billion and intended to improve safety during the pilgrimage.
Almost one kilometer long, it resembles a parking garage and allows 300,000 pilgrims an hour to carry out the ritual. Official figures showed that 1,952,817 pilgrims had performed this year’s hajj, including almost 1.4 million foreigners.
In Tehran, Iran said authorities at the hajj had closed off two paths near where the accident later took place.
“This caused this tragic incident,” the head of Iran’s hajj organization, Said Ohadi, told Iranian state television.
“Today’s incident shows mismanagement and lack of serious attention to the safety of pilgrims. There is no other explanation. The Saudi officials should be held accountable,” he said.
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian said Riyadh’s envoy to Tehran would be summoned to the foreign ministry.
The faithful had gathered until dawn yesterday at nearby Muzdalifah where they chose their pebbles and stored them in empty water bottles.
They spent a day of prayer on Wednesday on a vast plain and Mount Arafat, a rocky hill about 10 kilometers from Mina, for the peak of the hajj.
The ritual emulates the Prophet Abraham, who is said to have stoned the devil at three locations when he tried to dissuade Abraham from God’s order to sacrifice his son Ishmael.
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