Saudi Arabia blamed unruly pilgrims today for the crush that killed 362 people in the haj, but many Muslims said better security could have averted the worst disaster to befall the rite in 16 years.
The pilgrims were crushed on the last day of the haj at the disaster-prone Jamarat Bridge in Mena, a narrow valley near the holy city of Mecca, as they jostled to perform a stoning ritual in the early afternoon.
The legitimacy of Saudi Arabia's ruling house rests in the eyes of many Muslims on its ability to host some 2.5 million haj pilgrims from all over the world every year.
"The state has made every effort and done everything it should," the kingdom's top cleric, Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz al-Sheikh said on state television, accusing pilgrims of being disorderly.
Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul-Aziz also blamed pilgrims who defied the rules by carrying their belongings with them and ignored advice to stagger the rituals through the day.
"It pains us that so many people died, but we must point out that the security forces averted many more disasters from happening and saved many lives," the state news agency SPA quoted Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz as saying.
Health Ministry spokesman Khaled al-Mirghalani put the final death toll at 362, up from 345 announced yesterday. He said 45 remained in hospital but with only light injuries.
The dead included people from Saudi Arabia, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Egypt, Yemen, India, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, he said.
"The toll could rise because there are many bodies which are badly disfigured and have been put in freezers," Pakistan's Minister for Religious Affairs Mohammad said.
Many pilgrims insist on following Prophet Mohammad's example of stoning after noon prayers instead of staggering the ritual throughout the day as some clerics recommend.
Saudi clerics who follow the strict Wahhabi branch of Sunni Islam have in the past advised stoning after noon. But some pilgrims said the authorities had failed to impose their own rules on the ritual, which has seen similar deadly stampedes in the past.
In 2004, some 250 pilgrims were crushed to death at Jamarat Bridge. A decade earlier, 270 were killed in a similar stampede. Yesterday's death toll was the highest since 1,426 people were killed in a stampede in a tunnel in Mecca in 1990.
This year's haj had already been marred by the collapse of a Mecca hostel that killed 76 people last week.
The five-day haj is a duty for every able-bodied Muslim who can afford it to perform at least once a lifetime. Officials say that around 300,000 Muslims who are already resident in Saudi Arabia slip into the Mecca area to join the some two million pilgrims taking part.