Hajj 2015: At least 717 killed in Makkah stampede

At least 310 people have been killed in a stampede in Mecca, or Makkah, during the Hajj pilgrimage. Saudi media reported 450 people had been injured in the stampede as well.

Update: The latest figures show at least 717 people are dead and 800 others injured.

It has been officially announced on Twitter that the rescue operations are underway. The incident took place in Mina near Makkah. Hundreds of thousands of Muslim pilgrims were participating in the “stoning the devil” rites when the stampede took place, Al Arabiya reported.

This is not the first tragic incident for the 2015 Hajj. More than 200 Hajj pilgrims in Saudi Arabia were trapped as the door of a special train taking the pilgrims to Arafat from Makkah malfunctioned on Wednesday. The pilgrims suffocated and many collapsed.

According to the Saudi civil defence department, around 1,500 people had been forced to leave their hotel on Monday. Four pilgrims from Yemen sustained minor injuries while the 15-storey hotel was caught with fire.

There have been large scale tragedies during the Hajj pilgrimage in the past as well. More than 360 pilgrims died in a stampede in 2006. The incident took place at the desert plain of Mina near Mecca. Two years earlier, 244 people were killed.

According to Tasnim News, the worst Hajj tragedy took place in 1990 when a stampede killed 1,426 pilgrims in an overcrowded pedestrian tunnel leading to holy sites in Mecca.

On Sep. 11, a deadly crane crash in Makkah killed at least 111 people and injured 331. Saudi King Salman announced one million riyals (around AUD 383,388) compensation for those injured with permanent disability and half a million for other injured pilgrims. He also compensated families of the deceased with one million riyals.

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