Incidents during the Hajj

Crushes and failures of crowd control

Sometimes the dense, surging troupes, trekking from one station of the pilgrimage to the next, cause a stampede, or more precisely, a progressive troupe collapse. At densities above 6 or 7 persons per square meter, individuals cannot move, groups are swept along in waves, individuals jostle to find breath and to avoid falling and being trampled, and hundreds of deaths can occur as a result. The stoning of the devil (ramī aj-jamarāt) ceremony is particularly crowded and dangerous. Pilgrims ritualistically throw pebbles at three walls (formerly pillars) which represent the three places where the devil tempted Abraham. It is one of a series of ritual acts that must be performed in the Hajj.

Some notable incidents include:

Fires

Protests and violence

Airplane crashes

Disease

Mingling of visitors from many countries, some of which have poor health care systems still plagued by preventable infectious diseases, can lead to the spread of epidemics. If an outbreak were to occur on the road to Mecca, pilgrims could exacerbate the problem when they returned home and passed their infection on to others. This was more of a problem in the past. One such disease, which has prompted response from the Saudi government, is meningitis as it became a primary concern after an international outbreak following the Hajj in 1987. Due to post-Hajj outbreaks globally of certain types of meningitis in previous years, it is now a visa requirement to be immunised with the ACW135Y vaccine before arrival. Every year, the Saudi government publishes a list of required vaccines for pilgrims, which for 2010 also included yellow fever, polio, and influenza.

Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus

As of 9 September 2013, the Saudi government asked "elderly and chronically ill Muslims to avoid the hajj this year" and restricted the numbers of people allowed into the country due to Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV). On 1 November 2013, a woman who had recently performed the hajj contracted the disease and is in Spain. Although MERS-CoV was not detected among pilgrims, this does not rule out risk of the disease at hajj. The disease, though, is only mildly contagious.

Historical outbreaks

In 1905 the El Tor strain of cholera was discovered in six pilgrims returning from hajj at the El-Tor quarantine camp in Egypt.

2006 Al Ghaza hotel collapse

A concrete multi-story building located in Mecca close to the Grand Mosque collapsed on January 5, 2006. The building, the Al-Ghaza Hotel, is said to have housed a restaurant, a convenience store, and a hotel. The hotel was reported to have been housing pilgrims to the 2006 Hajj. It is not clear how many pilgrims were in the hotel at the time of the collapse. As of the latest reports, the death toll was 76 and the number of injured was 64.

2015 crane collapse

A crane fell in the grand mosque on September 11, 2015, ten days before Hajj. 118 people died and 394 were injured.

Other fatal events

Of the millions of pilgrims each year, many are elderly, and some die of their illnesses, exacerbated in some cases by the heat and exertion.

Pickpocketing

Of late, pickpocketing has created numerous problems for Hajj pilgrims. According to the Save Madina Foundation, 321 were victims of pickpocketing during Hajj in 2010.

Official responses

Critics say that the Saudi government should have done more to prevent such tragedies. The Saudi government insists that any such mass gatherings are inherently dangerous and difficult to handle, and that they have taken a number of steps to prevent the problems. The fatalities in the largest tragedy in September 2015 are alleged to have been downplayed by the Saudis by as many as 1,700.

One of the biggest steps, which is also controversial, is a new system of registrations, passports, and travel visas to control the flow of pilgrims. This system is designed to encourage and accommodate first-time visitors to Mecca, while restricting repeat visits. Pilgrims who have the means and desire to perform the Hajj several times have protested what they see as discrimination, but the Hajj Commission has stated that they see no alternative if further tragedies are to be prevented.

Following the 2004 stampede, Saudi authorities embarked on major construction work in and around the Jamaraat Bridge area. Additional accessways, footbridges, and emergency exits were built, and the three cylindrical pillars were replaced with concrete walls to enable more pilgrims simultaneous access to them without the jostling and fighting for position of recent years. The government has also announced a multimillion-dollar project to expand the bridge to five levels; the project is planned for completion in time for the 1427 AH (Dec. 2006 – Jan. 2007) Hajj. Following the 2006 incident, the Jamaraat Bridge and the pillars representing Satan were demolished and reconstructed. A wider, multi-level bridge was built, and massive columns replaced the pillars themselves. Now, each level of the bridge allows easier and safer access to the columns representing Satan. In addition, the stoning ceremony must be carried out according to pre-determined schedules to prevent over-crowding and the attendant risks. The Jamaraat basin has been expanded from its current circular shape into an oval to allow better access to the pillars. The new arrangements provide for separate access and departure routes. However, a security breakdown is mentioned as cause for the 2015 stampede. A group of pilgrims who had cast their own stones and were returning to their camp, instead of taking the route designated for returning pilgrims, they took the route meant for those who were coming and crossed the other group of pilgrims heading straight to the jamaraat.