Accident an ‘act of God’............

Hajj to go ahead despite Makkah crane collapse; Death toll 

hits 107 – Accident an ‘act of God’ – Camel slaughter banned

Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz (center) listens to Makkah Governor Prince Khaled Al-Faisal yesterday during a tour of the site where a crane fell inside the Grand Mosque. —

MAKKAH: Saudi authorities said yesterday that the annual hajj pilgrimage will go ahead despite a crane collapse that killed 107 people at Makkah’s Grand Mosque, where crowds returned to pray a day after the tragedy. Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims had already arrived in Makkah for the hajj, a must for all able-bodied Muslims who can afford it, when the massive red and white crane collapsed during rain and high winds on Friday. Parts of the Grand Mosque, one of Islam’s holiest sites, remained sealed off yesterday around the toppled crane, which also injured around 200 people when it fell into a courtyard.

The director general of civil defense, Suleiman bin Abdullah Al-Amro, told satellite broadcaster Al-Arabiya that the unusually powerful winds that toppled the crane also tore down trees and signs as a storm whipped through the area. He denied reports that lightning brought down the red-and-white crane, which was being used for the mosque’s expansion, or that some of those killed died in a stampede. “The speed of the wind was not normal,” he said. “There was no way for people to know that the crane was about to collapse for them to scramble,” he added.

But there was little mourning among pilgrims, who snapped pictures of the wreckage and continued with their prayers and rituals. “I wish I had died in the accident, as it happened at a holy hour and in a holy place,” Egyptian pilgrim Mohammed Ibrahim told AFP. The accident occurred only about an hour before evening Mahgrib prayers on the Muslim weekly day of prayer. Om Salma, a Moroccan pilgrim, said “our phones have not stopped ringing since yesterday with relatives calling to check on us”. Indonesians and Indians were among those killed when the crane collapsed, while the injured included Malaysians, Egyptians and Iranians.

A Saudi official said the hajj, expected to start on Sept 21, would proceed despite the tragedy. “It definitely will not affect the hajj this season, and the affected part will probably be fixed in a few days,” said the official, who declined to be named. An investigative committee has “immediately and urgently” begun searching for the cause of the collapse, the official Saudi Press Agency said. The contractor has been directed to ensure the safety of all other cranes at the site, it added.

The cranes poke into the air over the sprawling mosque expansion taking place beneath the Makkah Royal Clock Tower, the world’s third-tallest building, at 601 m. For years, work has been underway on a 400,000 sq m expansion of the Grand Mosque to allow it to accommodate up to 2.2 million people at once.

Abdel Aziz Naqoor, who said he works at the mosque, told AFP he saw the massive construction crane fall during the storm. “If it weren’t for the tawaf bridge, the injuries and deaths would have been worse,” he said, referring to a covered walkway which broke the crane’s fall and surrounds the holy Kaaba. The Kaaba is a massive cube-shaped structure at the centre of the mosque towards which Muslims worldwide pray. A witness said the winds were so strong that they shook his car and tossed billboards around.

Pictures of the incident on Twitter showed bloodied bodies strewn across the courtyard, where part of the crane came to rest atop an ornate, arched and colonnaded section of the complex. A video on YouTube showed people screaming and rushing around following a loud crash. Saudis and foreigners lined up in the street to give blood in response to the tragedy.

Irfan Al-Alawi, co-founder of the Makkah-based Islamic Heritage Research Foundation, suggested that authorities were negligent by having a series of cranes overlooking the mosque. “They do not care about the heritage, and they do not care about health and safety,” he told AFP. Alawi is an outspoken critic of redevelopment at the holy sites, which he says is wiping away tangible links to Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

But an engineer for the Saudi Binladin Group, the developer, told AFP the crane was installed in “an extremely professional way” and there was no technical problem. “It was an act of God”, he said. The engineer told AFP the crane, like many others on the project, had been there for three or four years without any problem. “It was not a technical issue at all,” said the engineer, who asked not to be identified. “I can only say that what happened was beyond the power of humans. It was an act of God and, to my knowledge, there was no human fault in it at all.” The engineer said the crane was the main one used on work to expand the tawaf (circumambulation) area around the Kaaba – a massive cubed structure at the centre of the mosque that is a focal point of worship.
“It has been installed in a way so as not to affect the hundreds of thousands of worshippers in the area and in an extremely professional way,” he said. “This is the most difficult place to work in, due to the huge numbers of people in the area.” The crane’s heavy hook, which is able to lift hundreds of tonnes, began swaying and moved the whole crane with it, toppling into the mosque, the engineer explained. A witness said the accident occurred during winds which were so strong they shook his car and tossed billboards around. The Saudi Binladin Group belongs to the family of the late Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
Sheikh Ahmed Al-Ghamdi, former head of Makkah’s religious police, told AFP the accident is a “test” from God. “We need to accept what happened,” he said, calling at the same time for a thorough investigation. Condolences came in from around the world, including from Arab leaders, as well as from Britain, Canada, India and Nigeria. This was not the first tragedy to strike Makkah pilgrims, though the hajj has been nearly incident-free in recent years. In 2006, several hundred died in a stampede during the Stoning of the Devil ritual in nearby Mina, following a similar incident two years earlier.

Separately, Saudi Arabia on Friday banned the slaughter of camels during this year’s hajj pilgrimage, after a surge in deaths from the MERS virus linked to the animals. Camels will not be allowed to enter the holy sites of Makkah and Madinah, the Permanent Committee for Fatwa said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency. “The Permanent Committee for Fatwa stressed no slaughter of the camels inside the holy sites due to emergence of the coronavirus,” the committee said. Only sheep and cows will be allowed.

As part of the hajj rituals, pilgrims traditionally slaughter animals and give the meat to the needy. The World Health Organization has cited the preliminary results of studies indicating that people working with camels are at increased risk of infection from the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV). Saudi Arabia is the worst-affected of more than 20 countries where MERS has appeared.

The Ministry of Health on Friday reported three new cases, bringing to 1,231 the number of infections since MERS was first identified in the kingdom in 2012. There have been 521 deaths, including 19 in one week during late August. MERS is considered a deadlier but less infectious cousin of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) virus that appeared in Asia in 2003 and killed hundreds of people, mostly in China. MERS symptoms can include fever, coughing and shortness of breath. – Agencies