(VOVworld) - At least 310 people were killed, and 450 injured, in a stampede near Mecca, Saudi Arabia, on Thursday morning.
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| Emergency workers at the site of a stampede in Mina, outside the Muslim holy city of Mecca, on Thursday. Credit Saudi Civil Defense, via Reuters |
This has been the worst disaster in the history of the Haji pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. The accident took place at the intersection of two roads in Mina, causing many to fall and others to panic.
More than 4,000 emergency workers and 200 ambulances were sent to the scene, and hundreds of people were taken to four hospitals.
Mina, about six miles east of the city center of Mecca, provides temporary accommodation — with about 160,000 air-conditioned tents – for many of the more than two million pilgrims. An estimated 2 million people have paid pilgrimage to the Haji since Tuesday.