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24-06-2024
RIYADH: More than 1,000 people died during haj this year, according to a Reuters tally, as extreme heat hammered the nearly two million who took part in the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca.
Most of dead were Egyptians. Security and medical sources told Reuters on Sunday that the Egyptian death toll had risen to 672 and another 25 were missing.
A total of 236 Indonesians died, according to Indonesian government data, while India’s External Affairs agency said 98 Indian citizens died during haj.
Further deaths were reported by Tunisia, Jordan, Iran, and Senegal, making this year’s total toll at least 1,114 people, according to a Reuters tally.
An Egyptian crisis unit tasked with investigating the situation said on Saturday it has suspended licences of 16 tourism companies and referred them to the public prosecutor, accusing them of being responsible for deaths it said were mainly among pilgrims not registered under the official system.
The unit said 31 deaths were confirmed as a result of chronic illness among officially registered pilgrims.
Two unnamed Arab diplomats told media that 323 people from Egypt alone had died, most because of heat-related illnesses. Egypt has not yet shared an official count, but other countries whose citizens flocked to the holy city of Mecca have been reporting tolls: at least 138 from Indonesia, 41 from Jordan and 35 from Tunisia.
Media reporting from Mecca, also cited a triple-digit death toll, and described people lining up at an emergency health facility to get information about missing loved ones.
While it was not clear how many of those deaths were attributable to heat, this year’s Hajj coincided with a heat wave unusually searing for June. At one point during the multiday gathering, temperatures reached 51.8 degrees Celsius, or 125 Fahrenheit. More than 1.8 million people took part in the pilgrimage.
“The numbers were huge. … We could not breathe,” said 37-year-old Ahmad Bahaa, an engineer from Egypt who works in Saudi Arabia and took part in the Hajj.
Every year, Saudi Arabia approves a set number of pilgrim visas, with quotas for each Muslim-majority country. But hundreds of thousands of people who don’t secure visas still manage to participate.
“Ambulances were moving nonstop, collecting people left and right,” Bahaa said. “People were sleeping on the sidewalks. … I saw someone right in front of our tent who collapsed and could not even move.”
Mecca is Islam’s holiest city, the birthplace of the prophet Muhammad, and the Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam, a ritual to be completed at least once in the lifetime of every Muslim with the means but Mecca is also an inland city hit by humid air from the Red Sea. Many who make the pilgrimage are elderly. People pack into tight areas. Over about five days, they can spend several dozen hours outdoors.
The outcome in this instance shows how mass-scale outdoor gatherings have the potential to become more lethal as parts of the world warm beyond what humans can withstand.
Over the years, Saudi Arabia has taken steps to reduce the dangers, erecting more than 100,000 air-conditioned tents, distributing water and umbrellas, planting trees and preparing facilities to respond to heat-related illnesses. Still, a paper published this year by Saudi-based researchers said that while these measures had been helpful, “concerns arise about the sufficiency of current mitigation measures in the face of escalating heat.”
In Mecca, as in much of the world, the number of dangerously hot days is surging. By 2050, Mecca will have an estimated 182 days of dangerous heat for those outdoors in the sun, according to an analysis conducted last year. (Int’l News Desk)
