Mecca: More than 700 pilgrims die in worst hajj disaster for 25 years

At least 717 people have been crushed to death in a stampede outside Mecca and more than 850 injured in the deadliest disaster on the annual hajj pilgrimage in a quarter of a century.

Panic broke out when two groups of pilgrims preparing for one of the last major rites of their trip, the “stoning of the devil” ritual at Jamarat, collided at the intersection of two narrow streets. Within minutes the tarmac was a macabre jumble of dishevelled, partially clothed bodies.

The tragedy struck as Muslims around the world marked the start of the Eid al-Adha holiday (Feast of the Sacrifice), Islam’s most important feast and the day of the stoning ritual.

The disaster revived questions about Saudi Arabia’s ability to manage the world’s largest annual migration, in which more than two million people travel to the holiest sites in Islam each year, and the tragedy turned political as officials and diplomats began trading recriminations even before rescue operations had wound up.

The Saudi monarch, King Salman, ordered a review of the kingdom’s plans for the hajj after the disaster.

Speaking in a live speech broadcast by Saudi-owned al-Arabiya television, he also said he had asked for a swift investigation into what he described as a “painful incident”.

Tehran accused Riyadh of failing its pilgrims after it emerged that dozens of the dead were Iranian, while some Saudi politicians appeared to push blame on to the dead pilgrims themselves.

The scale of the disaster was so vast that rescue teams worked into the evening to evacuate the injured and bodies of the dead, while security forces kept order among the thousands of pilgrims still filing through the area.

Frantic scrabble

Survivors described losing their loved ones and their clothes, in a frantic scrabble to escape the deadly crush as it surged down a narrow street with no exits. The toll may rise further, Al-Arabiya television channel quoted the interior ministry saying.

“I saw someone trip over someone in a wheelchair and several people tripping over him. People were climbing over one another just to breathe,” said one survivor, 44-year-old Egyptian Abdullah Lotfy.

“It was like a wave. You go forward and suddenly you go back,” he told the Associated Press. Other survivors recounted being turned back from the entrance to tented camps as the crowd surged behind them.

“I saw the pilgrims were falling down and getting crushed and heard women and elderly people were screaming, asking for help,” said one survivor, who gave his name as Dr Abdulrahman.

“I tried very hard to get out, I lost all my clothes, they were torn off but I didn’t care and I managed to get out.”

The tragedy came just weeks after a crane collapse killed more than 100 people and injured more than 200 more in the same area, and two hotels had to evacuate thousands of guests when major fires broke out, also injuring pilgrims.

Saudi Arabia’s king is also known as the Custodian of the Two Mosques, an acknowledgement of his role protecting pilgrims and the sites they visit.

The crown prince ordered an investigation into the causes of the stampede, but other officials were quick to shrug off any suggestion of official failings.

Caused by overcrowding

The Saudi health minister, Khalid al-Falih, pointed a finger of blame at the dead themselves, saying the pilgrims had been undisciplined.

“The accident, as most know, was a stampede caused by overcrowding, and also caused by some of the pilgrims not following the movement instructions of the security and hajj ministry,” he told a local TV channel.

High temperatures and exhaustion among may have contributed to the disaster, military spokesman Maj Gen Mansour al-Turki said, but he added there was no indication authorities are to blame.

“Unfortunately, these incidents happen in a moment,” the Associated Press quoted him as saying.

Furious officials

Prince Khaled al-Faisal, head of Saudi Arabia’s central hajj committee, drew criticism after reportedly blaming the fatal crush on “some pilgrims with African nationalities”.

Yesterday’s tragedy unfolded in Mina, a dusty, overcrowded valley a few miles outside Mecca where a temporary city of 160,000 tents houses more than two million people for a few days each year. – Guardian service

Members of the Muslim community in Ireland said a number of Irish pilgrims

are attending the hajj. Dr Mudafar al-Tawash, administrator of the Dublin mosque, told RTÉ that he had received word that no members of the group which travelled from Ireland were hurt.

The Department of Foreign Affairs last night said it had received no requests for consular assistance in relation to the incident in Mecca.