According to official Saudi sources, dozens of pilgrims died and others seriously injured in a stampede that occurred at one of the gates leading to the stone-throwing ritual site on Thursday in Mina. The site outside the holy city of Mecca is a notorious bottleneck in the week long pilgrimage and has seen deadly incidents in seven of the past 17 years, including a stampede in 1990 that killed 1,426 people and one in 2004 that killed 244.
Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman, General Mansour Ben Soultan Al-Tourki said the stampede took place following the falling of pilgrims luggage at the east gate of the Jamarat. He did not give the number of killed and injured nor their nationalities, but said that rescue teams rushed to the spot and security forces are controlling the situation.Other reports put the number of dead at over 345. The Interior Ministry put the death toll at 345, and the Health Ministry said an additional 289 people were injured. State-run Al-Ekhbariyah television said most of the victims were from South Asia. Many Saudis blame the semi-regular tragedies of hajj on the pilgrims. It's not uncommon to hear Saudis complain that the pilgrims are illiterate, or that they arrive from rural areas in developing countries without knowing how to behave in large crowds.
After the 2004 stampede, Saudi officials widened ramps leading to a platform the width of an eight-lane highway where the three pillars are located and created more emergency exits to accommodate the crowds.
Saudi authorities have sought for years to ease the flow of increasingly mammoth crowds, but the tragedy underlined the difficulty in managing one of the biggest religious events in the world, which this time drew more than 2.5 million pilgrims.The deaths on the final day of stoning came a week after another hajj disaster, the Jan. 5 collapse of a building being used as a pilgrims' hotel that killed 76 people in Mecca. (See earlier story in our News Briefs)
Tags: Morocco, Hajj, Saudi, news
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