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Stampede in Mina during Hajj, at least 717 perished.


Maeriberii Haan

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http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/24/mecca-crush-during-hajj-kills-at-least-100-saudi-state-tv

 

A terrible incident has once again struck this month. The worst incident related to Hajj during the last 25 years, to think that this happened not two weeks after the crane incident earlier this month...

 

My condolences and prayers for the victims, and I'm really hoping that the incident will be properly investigated this time. Not wishing to point fingers especially at a time like this but honestly Saudi's approach to safety during the pilgrimage gets more and more questionable for me.

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Unfortunately I'm not sure their's not much to be investigated.  Form the article it seems like everyone kinda just converged at once and the people per square foot exponentiated almost instantaneously.  I don't know why more safety precautions have been implemented though, especially since this tragedy occurs almost annually on a varying scale.  Wider roads/walking space, implementation of a more orderly merger (i.e. people who report to the rest of the police/whatever who are watching over everything to let them know when a large group is already in the area and to pause another large group for a moment to let them pass), etc.

 

Just simple things like that does nothing to disrespect the ritual or anything and also helps keep disorderly conduct from being a cause of death.  Hopefully they will do a bit more about it.

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I don't really know what to say to this. It's a tragedy for sure...

It does seem like Saudi Arabia should be doing more to make things safer for everybody though. I mean, Hajj happens every year, so you would think they would have realized the need for improvements earlier. It's good that Saudi is finally doing something about it, but it's sad that it took a tragedy of this scale to make it happen.

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A... stampede of what? A stampede of... people?

 

H-how does something like this happen?

According to the news (and one person who was there), key routes were suddenly locked off for whatever reason, forcing more people than usual to go the same way.

Trying to think of an appropriate analogy.

 

I'm taking the Saudi government's remark about people not listening to orders with a grain of salt; maybe that might be true, but there are more uncertainties surrounding the situation.

 

They are trying to ensure the safety, yes, but they certainly needed to do more here.

If it was indeed their own lack of crowd control, then they should've worked on that prior to this happening, especially given that accident prior to this.

 

Because this is an annual event, especially one that draws people from over the world instead of just within their region, they really need to do more to protect the lives of those who come to do their ritual.

 

Indeed, it's tragic and the number of confirmed dead increased to 769 or something from the number in the OP.

We know that Iran is enraged over this, since a good chunk of the dead are their own (around 130 or so).

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