Death toll in Mecca stampede rises to 717 pilgrims

Saudi Arabia’s civil defense directorate says at least 453 people were killed in a stampede on the outskirts of the holy city of Mecca during the annual hajj pilgrimage.

This year, two million people are participating.

Stay with WPRI.com and Eyewitness News This Morning for more details on this breaking story. Gen. Mansour al-Turki, said King Salman has ordered the creation of committee to investigate the incident.

He congratulated citizens and pilgrims on the occasion of Eid Al-Adha and prayed to Allah to bestow His blessings on the Muslim Ummah.

A visibly shaken Ismail Hamba, 58, of Nigeria, said he was on his way to cast stones when he suddenly became dizzy and fell down.

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.

The hajj is among the five pillars of Islam, and every capable Muslim must perform it at least once in a lifetime.

In addition to the 717 dead, at least 805 other pilgrims were injured. Over one hundred people were killed in that accident.

The United States has expressed its “deepest condolences” over the hundreds of Muslim pilgrims who died in a “heartbreaking stampede” outside Mecca during the annual hajj. Stampedes in 1994, 2004 and 2006 each killed more than 200 pilgrims.

On Thursday, more than 700 people were killed and 863 were injured in a stampede near Mecca, Saudi Arabia, with the death toll expected to rise.

More than 220 rescue vehicles and some 4,000 members of the emergency services were deployed soon after the stampede to try to ease the congestion and provide alternative exit routes, according to the directorate.

The names of all Iranians killed in the stampede were read out in a sombre live broadcast in Tehran by a spokesman for the hajj organisation. Mina also houses more than 160,000 tents for pilgrims to sleep in during their journey.

Two weeks ago 110 people died in Mecca’s Grand Mosque when a crane working on an expansion project collapsed during a storm and toppled off the roof into the main courtyard, crushing pilgrims underneath.

The deadliest hajj-related tragedy happened in 1990, when at least 1,426 pilgrims perished in a stampede in an overcrowded pedestrian tunnel leading to holy sites in Mecca.

Congress general secretary Shakeel Ahmad told IANS that devotees getting killed while performing Haj in Saudi Arabia was “very unfortunate”.

Reuters reporters in another part of Mina said they could hear police and ambulance sirens, but that roads leading to the site of the disaster had been blocked to prevent a further crowds developing.