Riyadh/New Delhi, Sep 12: Two haj pilgrims from India were among the more than 100 people, who were killed when a construction crane crashed on the Grand Mosque in Makkah on Friday evening.
File photo shows worshippers at Makkah’s Grand Mosque sorrounded by construction cranes.
Haj Committee of India vice-president Mohammed Margoob Ahmed said over phone that one woman from Kerala and a man from West Bengal lost their lives in the mishap, which killed at least 107 people and left over 238 wounded.
Fifteen others from India had sufferred injuries, said Mr. Ahmed. The Haj Committee of India is in touch with the Consulate General of India in Jeddah, he said adding that the injured pilgrims hailed from Maharashtra, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi.
Doctors and other volunteers from India have been pressed into service to attend to the injured, he said.
More than 80 per cent of the 1.35 lakh pilgrims from India had already reached Saudi Arabia and were put up in Makkah or Madina as part of the annual pilgrimage, which begins next week.
Our latest update from #Makkahpic.twitter.com/1A1gZTZ3aj
— Vikas Swarup (@MEAIndia) September 12, 2015
Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Vikas Swarup tweeted that senior Indian officers, including the Consul General, are in Makkah and Indian doctors deployed in all government hospitals are trying to get more information.
#Update from Makkah. Our 24*7 Mission helpline no: 00966125458000 00966125496000 Toll free number for pilgrims in Kingdom: 8002477786
— Vikas Swarup (@MEAIndia) September 12, 2015
The mishap occurred At least 107 people were killed and over 238 were wounded when a crane toppled over at Makkah’s Grand Mosque, Saudi Arabia's Civil Defence Authority said.
"All those who were wounded and the dead have been taken to hospital. There are no casualties left at the location," General Suleiman al-Amr, director-general of the Civil Defence Authority, told al-Ikhbariya television. Strong wind and rains had uprooted trees and rocked cranes in the area, he said.
A statement by a spokesman for the administration of the mosques in Makkah and Madina said the crane smashed into the part of the Grand Mosque where worshippers circle the Kaaba — the black-clad cube towards which Muslims face to pray.
Pictures circulating on social media showed pilgrims in bloodied robes and debris from a part of the crane that appeared to have crashed through a ceiling.
Saudi authorities go to great lengths to prepare for the millions of Muslims who converge on Makkah to perform the sacred pilgrimage. Last year, they reduced the numbers permitted to make the haj pilgrimage on safety grounds because of construction work to enlarge the Grand Mosque.
The haj, one of the largest religious gatherings in the world, has been prone to disasters in the past, mainly from stampedes as pilgrims rush to complete rituals and return home. Hundreds of pilgrims died in such a crush in 2006.
Saudi authorities have since spent vast sums to expand the main haj sites and improve Makkah’s transport system, in an effort to prevent more disasters.
Security services often ring 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.
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