Update: 10.30 am
The number of Indian casualties has gone up to 14 in the Haj stampede in Saudi Arabia that claimed 717 lives and left over 800 injured, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has said.
“Our consul general Jeddah reports loss of 14 Indian lives in stampede,” the minister said in a tweet and added that “we have 13 injured in hospital“.
“The exact number will be known after confirmation by Saudi authorities,” she further said.
Emergency numbers
The External Affairs Ministry has provided emergency numbers in Makkah for the family members: Ph: 00966125458000 and 00966125496000.
A toll-free number for pilgrims in UAE is +8002477786.
Update: 8.20am
Mina, Saudi Arabia: At least 717 people, including four Indians, were killed and over 860 injured in a stampede that took place yesterday, September 24, during Haj here, in the second worst ever tragedy to hit the annual pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia.
The four Indians killed in the tragedy, during the symbolic stoning of the devil, included a woman and a volunteer, Indian Consulate officials in Jeddah said. Two Indians were also injured.
The Saudi civil defence authority said that 717 pilgrims from different nationalities were killed and 863 others were injured in the stampede that took place due to a sudden surge in the number of pilgrims heading to Jamarat for symbolic stoning of the devil by throwing pebbles against three stone walls, resulted in the stampede at 9 AM local time (1130 IST).
The state-run Saudi Press Agency said the stampede occurred at the intersection of two streets leading to Jamarat, about five kilometres from Makkah. Among the Indians killed, was a man from Kerala identified as Mohammed, from Kodungaloor in Thrissur district, Kerala’s Rural Development and Non Resident Keralite Affairs (NORKA) Minister K C Joseph said in Thiruvananthapuram.
Update: 4.37pm
Dubai: At least 310 pilgrims were killed on Thursday in a stampede at Mina, outside the Muslim holy city of Mecca, where some two million people are performing the annual haj pilgrimage, Saudi Arabia’s civil defense authority said. At least 450 others were injured in the crush, which took place on Street 204 of the camp city at Mina, a few kilometers east of Mecca, where pilgrims stay for several days during the climax of the haj.
Earlier report
Dubai: Weeks after the crane mishap in Mecca, at least 150 were killed and 400 more were injured in a stampede of pilgrims on Thursday, during the annual Haj in Saudi Arabia, according to the civil defence service.
Rescue operations were under way, the service said, on Twitter, after the stampede in Mina near Mecca, where hundreds of thousands of pilgrims were taking part in the last major rite of the Haj.
Street 204 is one of the two main arteries leading through the camp at Mina to Jamarat, where pilgrims ritually stone the devil. Stones are thrown at three large pillars in this ritual.
Thursday is Eid al-Adha, when Muslims slaughter a sheep. It has traditionally considered the most dangerous day of Haj because vast numbers of pilgrims attempt to perform rituals at the same time in a single location. Over one lakh Indians were among the millions at the haj ceremony.
This is the second major disaster at Mecca this month after over 100 people were killed on September 18, when a construction crane crashed on the Grand Mosque.
The pilgrimage, one of the largest religious gatherings in the world, has been prone to disasters in the past, mainly from stampedes as pilgrims rushed to complete rituals and return home. Hundreds of pilgrims died in a stampede in 2006. Massive infrastructure upgrades and extensive spending on crowd control technology over the past two decades had made such events far less common.
