Incidents During The Hajj

There have been many serious incidents during the Hajj (the Muslim pilgrimage to the city of Mecca) that have caused the loss of hundreds of lives. There are an estimated 1.3 billion Muslims living today, each of whom is expected to visit Mecca during the Hajj at least once; during the month of the Hajj, Mecca must cope with as many as four million pilgrims
Another remarkable stampede is the 1990 Hajj tragedy in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The annual sacred Muslim Hajj is attended by millions of pilgrims. Sometimes, even when authorities think they have done everything to avoid stampedes and other disasters, things still go wrong and deadly. Stampedes in Mecca are not unusual. Hundreds of pilgrims are killed in a mad rush of the crowd especially during the Stoning of the Devil ceremony. But the most tragic documented peace-time stampede in history occurred at the 1990 Hajj when more than 1400 pilgrims died in a pedestrian tunnel.