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Makkah stampede: 10 more Indians die, toll 45

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The stampede occurred in a street between pilgrim camps in Mina [Saudi civil defence handout]

The stampede occurred in a street between pilgrim camps in Mina [Saudi civil defence handout]

New Delhi: The toll of Indian Haj pilgrims killed in the stampede near Makkah in Saudi Arabia has risen to 45, with 10 more injured dying, the government announced on Monday.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj tweeted: “The death toll of Indians killed in Haj stampede is now 45. We have 50 Indian pilgrims in various hospitals in Saudi Arabia.”

Among the 10 who have died now, three are from West Bengal, two each from Kerala and Jharkhand, one each from Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, and an Indian who is a local resident.

Over 1,000 people were killed on Thursday in a stampede near Makkah during the Haj.

(IANS)

Saudi Mufti: Hajj stampede beyond human control

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Top religious leader says authorities not responsible for deadly crush, adding that “fate and destiny are inevitable”.

Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh told Saudi Arabia's crown prince: "You are not responsible for what happened" [AP]

Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh told Saudi Arabia’s crown prince: “You are not responsible for what happened” [AP]

by Al Jazeera

Saudi Arabia’s top religious leader has said that the Hajj stampede which killed 717 pilgrims was beyond human control, official media reported on the final day of this year’s pilgrimage.

The stampede was the worst disaster in a quarter-century to strike the annual event and drew fierce criticism of the Saudi authorities’ handling of safety, particularly from regional rival Iran.

“You are not responsible for what happened”, Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh told Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef in a meeting in Mina on Friday, the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported on Saturday.

“As for the things that humans cannot control, you are not blamed for them. Fate and destiny are inevitable,” the sheikh on told the prince, who is also minister of interior.

Bib Nayef chairs the Saudi Hajj committee and has ordered an investigation into Thursday’s stampede during a symbolic “stoning of the devil” ritual by hundreds of thousands of pilgrims at Jamarat Bridge in Mina, just outside the holy city of Mecca.

King Salman, whose official title is “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques” in Mecca and Medina, also ordered “a revision” of how the Hajj is organised.

On Saturday, groups of pilgrims were moving from early morning towards Jamarat Bridge for the last of three stoning days.

The interior ministry has said it assigned 100,000 police to secure the Hajj and manage crowds.

But pilgrims blamed the stampede on police road closures and poor management of the flow of hundreds of thousands of pilgrims in searing temperatures.

Abdullah al-Sheikh, chairman of the Shura Council, an appointed body which advises the government, stressed that pilgrims must stick to “the rules and regulations taken by the security personnel… In doing so, they protect their lives, their security and facilitate their performing of the rituals.”

Health Minister Khaled al-Falih earlier made similar remarks that faulted the worshippers.

‘Biased campaigns’

In comments carried late Friday by SPA, the Shura chairman called on citizens and Muslims to ignore “the biased campaigns carried out by the enemies of this pure country, to question the great efforts exerted by the kingdom to serve the holy sites, their construction and expansion, and to serve the visitors and pilgrims.”

Riyadh’s regional rival Iran said 131 of its nationals were among the victims, and on Friday stepped up its criticism of the kingdom, demanding that affected countries have a role in the Saudi investigation into the disaster.

“Saudi Arabia is incapable of organising the pilgrimage,” said Ayatollah Mohammad Emami Kashani, leading the main weekly prayers in Tehran.

“The running of the Hajj must be handed over to Islamic states,” he said.

Several African countries confirmed deaths in the stampede, as did India, Indonesia, Pakistan and the Netherlands. Moroccan media gave 87 nationals killed.

Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari urged King Salman “to ensure a comprehensive and thorough exercise that will identify any flaws in Hajj organisation”.

Buhari said his country had lost a prominent journalist, a professor “and others” in the tragedy.

Largely incident-free for nine years after safety improvements, this year’s Hajj was afflicted by double tragedy.

Days before it started, a construction crane collapsed at the Grand Mosque, Islam’s holiest site, killing 109 people including many foreigners.

The Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam, which each of the world’s more than 1.5 billion Muslims is expected to perform.

More than 450 killed in Hajj stampede

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At least 453 pilgrims killed, more than 700 injured in crush at Mina outside Mecca, Saudi’s civil defence reports.

The stampede occurred in a street between pilgrim camps in Mina [Saudi civil defence handout]

The stampede occurred in a street between pilgrim camps in Mina [Saudi civil defence handout]

by Al Jazeera

At least 453 people have been killed in a stampede at the annual Hajj pilgrimage, Saudi Arabia’s civil defence directorate said, as the death toll continued to rise.

The directorate said at least 719 other pilgrims were injured in Thursday’s stampede, which took place in Mina, on the outskirts of the holy city of Mecca.

The injured have been evacuated to four different hospitals in the Mina region, according to a civil defence spokesman.

Mina is where pilgrims carry out a symbolic stoning of the devil by throwing pebbles against three stone walls. It also houses more than 160,000 tents where pilgrims spend the night during the pilgrimage.

Al Jazeera’s Basma Atassi, reporting from Mina, said the incident took place in a street between pilgrim camps.

“The street where it happened is named Street 204. This stampede did not happen at the site of the ‘stoning of the devil’ ritual, which was happening today.

“During and after the stampede the pilgrims continued to flock into Mina to perform the devil stoning ritual.”

Amateur video shared on social media showed a horrific scene, with scores of bodies – the men dressed in the simple terry cloth garments worn during Hajj – lying alongside crushed wheelchairs and water bottles. The head of the Central Hajj Committee, Prince Khaled al-Faisal, blamed the stampede on “some pilgrims from African nationalities,” Saudi-owned al-Arabiya TV channel reported. Survivors assessed the scene by standing on the top of roadside stalls as rescue workers in orange and yellow vests combed the area. About 4,000 people from the rescue services were participating in the operation to help the injured and about 220 ambulances were directed to the scene, a civil defence spokesman said.

Photos released by the defence directorate on its official Twitter account showed rescue workers helping the wounded onto stretchers and loading them onto ambulances near some of the tents.

Al Jazeera’s Omar Alsaleh, reporting from Mecca, said the number of deaths may rise.

“This is only the initial number … The Hajj season was already overshadowed by the crane accident that killed 107 people and wounded more than 200,” Alsaleh said, adding: “The area has turned to a big massive construction site to allow more pilgrims to visit Mecca during Hajj.

“Mina has more than 160,000 tents divided over several camps, and with the 1.9 million people taking part in this year’s Hajj, you will understand the logistical nightmare that the Saudi authorities are facing.”

Deadly Hajj incidents

Saudi authorities take extensive precautions to ensure the security of the Hajj and the safety of pilgrims. But tragedies are not uncommon.

In 2006, more than 360 pilgrims were killed in a stampede, also in Mina.

The day before the 2006 Hajj began, an eight-story building being used as a hostel near the Grand Mosque in Mecca collapsed, killing at least 73 people.

Two years earlier, a crush at Mina killed 244 and injured hundreds on the final day of the pilgrimage.

And, in 2001, a stampede at Mina killed 35 people.

The worst hajj-related tragedy, which happened in 1990, killed 1,426 pilgrims in a stampede in an overcrowded pedestrian tunnel leading to holy sites in Mecca.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Mina,+Mecca+Saudi+Arabia/@21.415168,39.887677,10z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x15c2040f36853503:0xd6a3cb46f2b797b4?hl=en-US

Saudi Arabia suspends work of Mecca crane collapse firm

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Construction by Bin Laden Group halted after collapse left more than 100 pilgrims dead at Islam’s holiest site.

collapse Mecca Grand Mosque

by Al Jazeera

Saudi Arabia has suspended the Saudi Bin Laden Group from taking on new projects, just days after a deadly crane collapse in Mecca.

A statement by the Saudi government on Tuesday said the company’s operations had been stopped until a review of all their work had been completed.

The Saudi Bin Laden group is one of the region’s largest construction firms with contracts across the country.

Initial investigations by Saudi authorities suggested a “balance issue” in the crane and bad weather contributed to the tragedy that left at least 107 people dead and hundreds more injured at Islam’s holiest site immediately prior to the start of the Hajj.

Al Jazeera’s Omar al-Saleh, reporting from Mecca, said the move was “very significant”.

“The Mecca incident brought everything up to the surface, you can sense there were issues beneath the table,” Saleh said.

“There is an indication that the construction firm misused the manufacturers instructions, an indication perhaps of negligence.”

The Hajj, one of the largest religious gatherings in the world, has been prone to disasters in the past, mainly from stampedes as pilgrims rush to complete rituals and return home.

Hundreds of pilgrims died in such a crush in 2006.

Saudi authorities have since spent vast sums to expand the main Hajj sites and improve Mecca’s transport system, in an effort to prevent more disasters.

Two Indians among 107 killed in crane collapse at Mecca Grand Mosque

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collapse Mecca Grand Mosque

Riyadh: At least 107 people died when a massive construction crane crashed into Mecca’s Grand Mosque, with scores more injured, Saudi authorities said, days before the annual hajj pilgrimage.

The civil defence agency said on Twitter that emergency teams were sent to the scene after a “crane fell at the Grand Mosque,” one of Islam’s most revered sites.

That came about an hour after it tweeted that Mecca was “witnessing medium to heavy rains,” and pictures on social media showed lightning.

Ahmed bin Mohammad al-Mansoori, spokesman for the two holy mosques, was quoted by the official Saudi Press Agency as saying part of a crane collapsed at 5:10 pm (1410 GMT) “as a result of strong winds and heavy rains.”

Abdel Aziz Naqoor, who said he works at the mosque, told AFP he saw the crane fall after being hit by the storm.

“If it weren’t for Al-Tawaf bridge the injuries and deaths would have been worse,” he said, referring to a covered walkway that surrounds the holy Kaaba, which broke the crane’s fall.

The Kaaba is a massive cube-shaped structure at the centre of the mosque towards which Muslims worldwide pray and which has a major role in the hajj.

Pictures of the incident on Twitter showed bloodied bodies strewn across a courtyard where the top part of the crane, which appeared to have bent or snapped, had crashed into the building.

A video on YouTube showed people screaming and rushing around right after a massive crash was heard and as fog engulfed the city.

The incident occurred as hundreds of thousands of Muslims from all over the world gather for the annual hajj pilgrimage expected to begin on September 21.

The Grand Mosque is usually at its most crowded on Fridays, the Muslim weekly day of prayer.

Many faithful would have been gathered there ahead of evening maghrib prayers, which occurred about an hour after the tragedy.

Two Indians killed

The Ministry of External Affairs said that there were two Indians among the 107 people killed in the collapse. Around 15 Indian nationals were injured and were being treated in hospitals, said the statement posted on Twitter.

Pleas to donate blood

The governor of Mecca region, Prince Khaled al-Faisal, has ordered an investigation into the incident and was heading to the mosque, the official @makkahregion account on Twitter said.

Irfan al-Alawi, co-founder of the Mecca-based Islamic Heritage Research Foundation, compared the carnage to that caused by a bomb.

He suggested authorities were negligent by having a series of cranes overlooking the mosque.

“They do not care about the heritage, and they do not care about health and safety,” he told AFP.

Alawi is an outspoken critic of redevelopment at the holy sites, which he says is wiping away tangible links to the Prophet Mohammed.

Online activists created a hashtag on Twitter urging Mecca residents to donate blood at hospitals in the area.

No details were immediately available on the nationalities of the victims.

Iran’s official IRNA news agency, quoting the head of the Hajj Organisation, said 15 Iranian pilgrims were among those injured.

Most of them were treated as outpatients, Saeid Ohadi said.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose country is home to tens of millions of Muslims, took to Twitter to express his sorrow over the incident.

“My thoughts & prayers are with the families of those who lost their lives in the crane crash in Mecca. I wish the injured a quick recovery” he said on his @narendramodi account.

Britain’s David Cameron also used the micro-blogging site to say: “My thoughts and prayers are with those who have lost loved ones at #mecca today”.

A massive project is under way to expand the area of the mosque by 400,000 square metres (4.3 million square feet), allowing it to accommodate up to 2.2 million people at once.

Though marred in the past by deadly incidents including floods, stampedes and fires, the hajj has become nearly incident-free in recent years because of multi-billion dollar investments.

These have included transport networks and other infrastructure to facilitate movement of the crowds.

SPA said that almost 800,000 pilgrims had arrived by Friday for the hajj, which all able-bodied Muslims are expected to perform if they have the means to do so.

Last year, just over two million people took part.

(AFP)

Saudi crane collapse kills 107 in Mecca Grand Mosque

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Accident which also injured more than 230 people, just weeks before Hajj pilgrimage, blamed on violent thunderstorms.

Saudi crane collapse

by Al Jazeera

At least 107 people have been killed after a crane toppled over at Mecca’s Grand Mosque, less than two weeks before Islam’s annual Hajj pilgrimage.

In addition to the deaths, 238 people were wounded in Friday’s disaster, according to Saudi Arabia’s Civil Defence Authority.

The Saudi Press Agency quoted a spokesperson for the two holy mosques as saying that the crane was brought down by strong wind and heavy rain.

Pictures circulating on social media showed pilgrims in bloodied robes and debris from a part of the crane that appeared to have crashed through a ceiling.

Other pictures showed queues of Saudi men volunteering to donate blood for the injured. “All those who were wounded and the dead have been taken to hospital. There are no casualties left at the location,” General Suleiman al-Amr, director-general of the Civil Defence Authority, told Al Ikhbariya television. He said strong wind and rains had uprooted trees and rocked cranes in the area. “The crane collapsed near Al-Salam gate on the upper side of Al-Masaa area, and that caused the collapse of a small part of Al-Masaa and another section of Al-Mataf, the bridge area around the holy Kaaba,” Amr told Saudi state TV.

Official statement

A statement by a spokesperson for the administration of the mosques in Mecca and Medina said the crane toppled in the part of the Grand Mosque where worshippers circle the Kaaba – the black-clad cube towards which the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims face to pray. Al Jazeera’s Hasan Patel, reporting from Mecca, said witnesses told him that the crane fell on the third floor of the Grand Mosque at around 5.30pm on Friday.

He said the mosque was packed even though the incident happened before the 6.30pm prayer.

“Dozens of ambulances headed to the site. The authorities closed off the area shortly afterwards,” he said. “This whole place is already a giant construction site. What made it worse is that around 5.30pm there was severe rain and it was just gushing down the road. “I am surrounded by people who are grieving. The mood here is of sadness.” Saudi authorities go to great lengths to prepare for the millions of Muslims who converge on Mecca to perform the sacred pilgrimage. Last year, they reduced the numbers permitted to make the Hajj pilgrimage on safety grounds because of construction work to enlarge the Grand Mosque.

Prone to disasters

The Hajj, one of the largest religious gatherings in the world, has been prone to disasters in the past, mainly from stampedes as pilgrims rush to complete rituals and return home. Hundreds of pilgrims died in such a crush in 2006. Saudi authorities have since spent vast sums to expand the main Hajj sites and improve Mecca’s transport system, in an effort to prevent more disasters.

Security services often ring Islam’s sacred city with checkpoints and other measures to prevent people arriving for the pilgrimage without authorisation.

Those procedures, aimed at reducing crowd pressure which can lead to stampedes, fires and other hazards, have been intensified in recent years as security threats grow throughout the Middle East.

Richard Angwin, Al Jazeera’s senior weather presenter, said the autumn period is when half of Mecca’s thunderstorms occur, so “it was no great surprise that there were thunderstorms in the area”.

“The area of low pressure which brought sandstorms across the Levant region moved further south, allowing hot, moist air to develop into thunderstorms along the mountains bordering the Red Sea, and some of those drifted northwards across Mecca,” he said.

Only 1 in 4 Indian applicants will make it to Hajj this year

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india-hajj-pilgrims

Mumbai: Only one in four of Indian Muslims desiring to perform Hajj will be travelling to Saudi Arabia this year. The 20% reduction in Hajj quota ordered by the Saudi government is causing a huge backlog of pilgrims who want to perform the “once-in-a-lifetime” ritual.

Muslim leaders have demanded an increase in quota for India as the latest census data shows a rise in Muslim population (172.2 million or 14.23% of India’s population). The Saudi government allows one pilgrim per 1,000 Muslims in a country to go for the Haj.

The Haj Committee of India said around 3.83 lakh people applied for Haj 2015 but only 1.20 lakh pilgrims are travelling through the Haj Committee to Saudi Arabia to perform the rituals in the last week of this month. Around 36,000 are using private tour operators (PTOs) to fly to Saudi Arabia. “Since 2013, the Saudi government has cut 20% quota of pilgrims from every country as the expansion of the holy mosque in Mecca is underway and the administration wants fewer pilgrims there,” said Haj Committee CEO Ataur Rahman.

Muslim leaders want India’s ministry of external affairs to take up the issue with Saudi’s Haj ministry. “Thousands of Indian Muslims who fulfill criteria to go for the Haj are being denied it as the quota has reduced. The external affairs ministry must intervene and communicate this growing concern of Indian Muslims to the Saudi authorities,” said Congress MLA Amin Patel.

“We have told the external affairs ministry to look into the issue for the last few years. Haj is one of the pillars of Islam and performing it is mandatory for Muslims who can afford it. The government should take up the issue with the Saudi authorities and get our quota increased,” former minority department minister and MLA Arif Naseem Khan said.

(Agencies)

Bangladesh minister sacked after criticism of Haj

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A general view shows pilgrims converging for the evening prayer at Makkah’s Grand Mosque on Sept. 29, 2014 as hundreds of thousands of Muslims started pouring into the holy city for the annual Haj. Bangladesh's telecom minister was fired on Tuesday after criticizing Haj, one of the five pillars Islam, as an economically unproductive activity. (AFP PHOTO/MOHAMMED AL-SHAIKH)

A general view shows pilgrims converging for the evening prayer at Makkah’s Grand Mosque on Sept. 29, 2014 as hundreds of thousands of Muslims started pouring into the holy city for the annual Haj. Bangladesh’s telecom minister was fired on Tuesday after criticizing Haj, one of the five pillars Islam, as an economically unproductive activity. (AFP PHOTO/MOHAMMED AL-SHAIKH)

– by AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE

Dhaka: Bangladesh has sacked a top minister after his criticism of the Muslim pilgrimage of Haj triggered protests by Islamists who declared him an apostate and set a 24-hour deadline to replace him.

Abdul Latif Siddique, the country’s telecommunications minister, who is in New York accompanying Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, made the comments which were aired by local television stations.

Siddique said: “I am dead against Haj and Tablig Jamaat. Two million people have gone to Saudi Arabia to perform Haj. Haj is a waste of manpower. Those who perform Haj do not have any productivity. They deduct from the economy, spend a lot of money abroad.”

The comments drew immediate protests from the group Hefajat-e-Islam whose leaders called him “an apostate” and set a 24-hour deadline to the government to sack him from the Cabinet.

A senior official told AFP Siddique would be removed but he did not comment whether it was linked to demand by the Islamists.

“The decision has been taken to remove him from the Cabinet,” the official from the Prime Minister’s Office said, speaking on condition of anonymity. He added the decision would be effective after Hasina returns home.

At a New York rally where Siddique was the lone speaker on Sunday, he was also heard making critical comments about Hasina’s influential son and technology adviser, Sajeeb Wazed Joy. “Who is Joy? Joy is not part of the government.”

He also slammed the non-political Islamic group, Tablig Jamaat, millions of whose followers congregate outside the Bangladeshi capital each year in what authorities called the second largest Muslim gathering after the Haj.

He said the around two million people who gathered “don’t do any work except halting traffic movement throughout the country,” Siddiqui said.

There was no comment from the Tablig Jamaat.

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