A massive construction crane crashed into Mecca’s
Grand Mosque in stormy weather on Friday, killing at
least 107 people and injuring 238, 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 and
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 which is several storeys high.
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.
– 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
page 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.
A massive project is underway 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.
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