47 Pakistani Pilgrims Injured in Mecca Crane Accident

At least 47 Pakistani pilgrims were injured in Mecca’s Grand Mosque accident which caused at least 107 pilgrims to lose their lives, Pakistan’s Foreign Office Spokesperson Qazi Khalillulah confirmed on Saturday.

“Out of the 47 injured Pakistani pilgrims, 22 are under treatment in various hospitals, while 25 others received minor injuries and were discharged after treatment,” he stated.

Meanwhile, the country’s Minister for Religious Affairs Sardar Yousaf said that out of the 22 injured, seven are in critical condition.

“We are in constant contact with the Saudi authorities and we have been informed that Pakistani doctors are also providing medical aid to the injured,” he said.

A large construction crane toppled over and crashed into Masjid al-Haram (the Grand Mosque) in the holy city of Mecca on Friday, killing at least 107 people and raising fears about the safety of the site before the yearly hajj pilgrimage that is expected to bring in millions of visitors to Saudi Arabia this month.

Saudi Arabia’s civil defense authority said the number of injured has risen to 238 people.

25 Iranian nationals have also been injured in the incident.

Videos of the incident show the crane falling amid heavy winds and rain as well as chaos inside the mosque facility as the machinery crashed through the building.

Images also circulated on social media of worshipers covered in blood resting on the mosque’s white marble floor and laborers removing green carpets and cleaning puddles of blood.

Masjid al-Haram is the world’s largest and houses the Kaaba, the black cube that Muslims around the world pray toward and which they walk around during the pilgrimage.

The Saudi government is in the midst of a multibillion-dollar project to enlarge the mosque, and the site is currently ringed with cranes.

The millions of pilgrims who visit the country's holy sites each year pose a considerable security and logistical challenge for the Saudi government, and large-scale deadly accidents have occurred on a number of occasions in years past.

In 2006, more than 360 pilgrims died in a stampede at the desert plain of Mina, near Mecca. A crush of pilgrims two years earlier left 244 dead.

The worst hajj-related tragedy was in 1990, when 1,426 pilgrims died in a stampede in an overcrowded pedestrian tunnel leading to holy sites in Mecca.




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