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| Stampede Near Mecca Leaves at Least 310 Dead | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| BEIRUT, Lebanon — At least 310 people were killed, and 450 were injured, in a stampede near Mecca, Saudi Arabia, on Thursday. | |
| The deaths occurred on the first day of Eid al-Adha, one of the holiest holidays in the Muslim calendar, and as millions of Muslims were making their pilgrimage, or hajj, to Mecca. | The deaths occurred on the first day of Eid al-Adha, one of the holiest holidays in the Muslim calendar, and as millions of Muslims were making their pilgrimage, or hajj, to Mecca. |
| Saudi civil defense authorities confirmed the deaths on Twitter and said that two medical centers had been opened in Mina to treat the injured. More than 4,000 emergency workers were sent to the scene, and hundreds of people were taken to four hospitals. | |
| The stampede occurred less than two weeks after a large construction crane toppled and crashed into the Grand Mosque in Mecca, killing at least 111 people and injuring 394 others. | |
| The accident on Thursday, witnesses reported on social media, occurred around the area where pilgrims go to perform a ritual — the Stoning of the Devil, a re-enactment of a story from the Quran involving the Prophet Abraham — that takes place during the hajj. | |
| Mina, about six miles east of the city center of Mecca, provides temporary accommodation — with tens of thousands of air-conditioned tents — for many of the more than two million pilgrims who make the hajj to circumnavigate the Kaaba, which sits at the center of the Grand Mosque. | |
| As the global middle-class grows, so has the number of Muslims making the annual pilgrimage, placing increasing strain on the Saudi authorities. Thursday’s stampede is likely to intensify fears that the kingdom does not have the transportation and public safety infrastructure to channel and protect what is the world’s largest regular human migration. | |
| Mina has been the site of multiple deadly accidents over the years, according to The Associated Press. | |
| In 2006, a stampede there claimed more than 360 lives on the eve of the hajj, and a day earlier, an eight-story building near the Grand Mosque collapsed, killing at least 73 people. | |
| In 2001, a stampede in Mina killed around 35 people; in 1998, about 180 pilgrims were trampled there after several of them fell off an overpass during the stoning ritual; in 1997, at least 340 pilgrims were killed in a fire in Mina set off by high winds; in 1994, about 270 were killed in a stampede there. |