Tragedy in Mecca

High winds wreak havoc, over 107 killed in a crane crash near Ka’bah:

Saudi Arabia’s Civil Defence Authority says more than 200 were injured in preparations for the annual Haj pilgrimage.

At least 107 people were killed and 238 more were injured when a crane collapsed on to the Grand Mosque during storms in the Muslim holy city of Mecca on Friday (11), the Saudi Arabian Government said.

The Director General of the Civil Defence Authority, Suleiman al-Amr, said high winds caused the disaster.

On its Twitter account, the authority said, rescue teams had been sent to the scene and offered its “sincere condolences” over the deaths, as well as its prayers for the speedy recoveries of those injured.

The first images showed a large group of people lying on polished tiled flooring, most of them near to a wall and surrounded by rubble and other debris.

Stormy weather

Abdel Aziz Naqoor, who said he worked at the Mosque, told AFP that he had seen 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 Ka’bah and broke the crane’s fall.

The governor of Mecca region, Prince Khaled al-Faisal, ordered an investigation into the incident and was heading to the mosque, according to the local government.

Muslims make their annual Haj pilgrimage later in September and Saudi authorities go to great lengths to be prepared for the millions of people who converge on Mecca. They 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.

Millions of worshippers

Officials limited numbers attending the Haj 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 Ka’bah, 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, 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 transport 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 authorization. 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 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.

Injured pilgrims

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 5.30 pm 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.”

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.

Iran’s official IRNA news agency, quoting the head of the Hajj Organization, said 15 Iranian pilgrims were among those injured. Most of them were treated as outpatients, Saeid Ohadi said.

The Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, whose country is home to tens of millions of Muslims, said on Twitter: “My thoughts and prayers are with the families of those who lost their lives in the crane crash in Mecca. I wish the injured a quick recovery.”

The US Secretary of State, John Kerry, expressed condolences to Saudi Arabia and “all Muslims around the world in the aftermath of this dreadful incident at one of Islam’s holiest sites.”

The Saudi Press Agency 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. In 2014, just over two million people took part.Steep hills and low-rise traditional buildings that once surrounded the mosque have in recent years given way to shopping malls and luxury hotels – among them the world’s third-tallest building, a giant clock tower that is the centerpiece of the Abraj al-Bait complex.

The Saudi Binladin Group is leading the mosque expansion and also built the Abraj al-Bait project. The Binladin family has been close to the ruling al-Saud family for decades and oversees major building projects around the country.

- Guardian.uk