Saudi Arabia’s civil defence authority says almost 200 injured in preparations for annual Haj pilgrimage
The country’s civil defence authority said on its Twitter account that rescue teams had been sent to the scene. The tweet said that the authority’s director general Suleiman Al-Amr attended.
Muslims make their annual hajj pilgrimage later this month and Saudi authorities go to great lengths to be prepared for the millions of people who converge on Mecca.
Pictures circulating on social media, which the Guardian could not independently verify and which were too graphic to reproduce, showed what appeared to be numerous bodies on the ground - as well as bloodied, injured people being helped the scene.
They showed a large group of people lying on marble-like flooring, most of them near to a wall and surrounded by rubble and other debris. One man appears to be being wheeled out of the building on a wheelchair.
Other images posted on the same account appeared to show parts of a crane that crashed through the roof of a building.
Al-Arabiya television earlier said the crane had fallen because of strong storms. Western Saudi Arabia has been hit by strong sand storms in the past few days.
Saudi authorities have taken a series of safety measures over the past decade aimed at preventing crowd crushes after tragedies such as the stampede in 2006, which resulted in 350 deaths, a building collapse in the same year which killed 76 and a stampede that killed more than 200 people in 2004.
Officials limited numbers attending the hajj after a peak in 2013, in which more than 3.1 million pilgrims arrived. Bottlenecks in which crushes occurred along the pilgrimage route were widened and religious authorities decreed that it was not mandatory for pilgrims to touch sacred spots.
The Grand Mosque, which houses the Kaaba, the cube-shaped structure towards which Muslims worldwide pray, has been surrounded by a number of cranes. Reconstruction work has been going on to enlarge the mosque by 400,000 sq m (4.3 m sq ft), allowing it to accommodate up to 2.2 million people.
The work has continued for the past two years and was expected to be largely completed before this year’s pilgrimage, which begins on 22 September.
Saudi authorities have lavished vast sums to improve Mecca’s transportation system in an effort to prevent more disasters. Security services often surround 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.
According to a report on Al-Jazeera television, the crane fell on the east side of the mosque after a sandstorm and heavy rain. It said that the building’s doors were shut and people were locked inside. Its reporter said there was “slight pandemonium” and that one person was killed in the rush to get out.
The reporter said: “Dozens of ambulances are heading to the site. The authorities closed off the area shortly afterwards. This whole place is already a construction site. What made it worse is that around 5.30pm there was severe rain and it’s just gushing down the road. I am surrounded by people who are grieving. The mood here is of sadness.” - theguardian
Ambulances arrive at the Grand Mosque where a crane collapsed killing at least 87 people Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
RIYADH: At least 87 people were killed and as many as 184 more were injured when a crane collapsed at the Grand Mosque in the Muslim holy city of Mecca on Friday, the Saudi Arabian government has said.
RIYADH: At least 87 people were killed and as many as 184 more were injured when a crane collapsed at the Grand Mosque in the Muslim holy city of Mecca on Friday, the Saudi Arabian government has said.
The country’s civil defence authority said on its Twitter account that rescue teams had been sent to the scene. The tweet said that the authority’s director general Suleiman Al-Amr attended.
Muslims make their annual hajj pilgrimage later this month and Saudi authorities go to great lengths to be prepared for the millions of people who converge on Mecca.
Pictures circulating on social media, which the Guardian could not independently verify and which were too graphic to reproduce, showed what appeared to be numerous bodies on the ground - as well as bloodied, injured people being helped the scene.
They showed a large group of people lying on marble-like flooring, most of them near to a wall and surrounded by rubble and other debris. One man appears to be being wheeled out of the building on a wheelchair.
Other images posted on the same account appeared to show parts of a crane that crashed through the roof of a building.
Al-Arabiya television earlier said the crane had fallen because of strong storms. Western Saudi Arabia has been hit by strong sand storms in the past few days.
Saudi authorities have taken a series of safety measures over the past decade aimed at preventing crowd crushes after tragedies such as the stampede in 2006, which resulted in 350 deaths, a building collapse in the same year which killed 76 and a stampede that killed more than 200 people in 2004.
Officials limited numbers attending the hajj after a peak in 2013, in which more than 3.1 million pilgrims arrived. Bottlenecks in which crushes occurred along the pilgrimage route were widened and religious authorities decreed that it was not mandatory for pilgrims to touch sacred spots.
The Grand Mosque, which houses the Kaaba, the cube-shaped structure towards which Muslims worldwide pray, has been surrounded by a number of cranes. Reconstruction work has been going on to enlarge the mosque by 400,000 sq m (4.3 m sq ft), allowing it to accommodate up to 2.2 million people.
The work has continued for the past two years and was expected to be largely completed before this year’s pilgrimage, which begins on 22 September.
Saudi authorities have lavished vast sums to improve Mecca’s transportation system in an effort to prevent more disasters. Security services often surround 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.
According to a report on Al-Jazeera television, the crane fell on the east side of the mosque after a sandstorm and heavy rain. It said that the building’s doors were shut and people were locked inside. Its reporter said there was “slight pandemonium” and that one person was killed in the rush to get out.
The reporter said: “Dozens of ambulances are heading to the site. The authorities closed off the area shortly afterwards. This whole place is already a construction site. What made it worse is that around 5.30pm there was severe rain and it’s just gushing down the road. I am surrounded by people who are grieving. The mood here is of sadness.” - theguardian
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