MAKKAH,
January 5, 2006 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – A
four-storey building collapsed on Thursday, December 5, in the Muslim
holy city of Makkah, reportedly killing at least twenty three pilgrims
and wounding dozens others.
"For
the moment, I counted 23 bodies. The wounded are more than 80,"
witness Abderrahmane Ghoul, who heads an Islamic organization in
southeastern France, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"I
was present. It started with a fire in the building. A helicopter
started to sprinkle water to put out the fire. Afterwards, the
building collapsed," he said.
Ghoul
said the death toll would have been much higher if the tragedy had not
struck during one of the five daily prayers observed by Muslims.
The
pilgrims' hostel lay just 50 meters (yards) from Al-Masjid Al-Haram,
Islam's holiest shrine.
More
than 1.2 million Muslims from around the world have already arrived in
Saudi Arabia for the annual hajj, which climaxes this year on January
9 when the pilgrims descend the Mount `Arafat.
They
will be joined by around a million Saudi-based pilgrims.
Hajj
consists of several ceremonies, which are meant to symbolize the
essential concepts of the Islamic faith, and to commemorate the trials
of Prophet Abraham and his family.
Every
able-bodied adult Muslim who can financially afford the trip must
perform hajj, one of the five pillars of Islam, once in their
lifetime.
Nothing
Official
No
official statement has been issued on the incident and the state-run
Saudi Press Agency has not even reported the news.
"We
don't know for sure how many were killed, if any, or if there were
pilgrims in the building or not," Interior Minister spokesman
Mansour al-Turki told Reuters from Riyadh.
Saudi
civil defense officials said an unknown number of people were injured
and were now in hospital.
The
United Arab Emirates state news agency WAM said four of its citizens
had been killed as they passed in front of the building.
Some
Makkah residents said about 30 people were staying in the old
building.
Saudi
authorities had deployed some 60,000 security personnel to try to
prevent any repetitions of the deadly stampedes and structural
failures that have marred previous pilgrimages.
In
2003, 14 pilgrims, including six women, were killed during the first
day of the symbolical stoning of the devil, 35 in 2001 and 118 in
1998.
The
worst toll was in July 1990, when 1,426 pilgrims were trampled or
asphyxiated to death in a stampede in a tunnel in Mina.
