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At least 717 people trampled to death.


Timothy

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'AT least 717 people have been trampled to death and another 805 hurt in a horrifying stampede during the hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia on Thursday, the civil defence directorate said.'

http://www.news.com.au/world/middle-east/stampede-crush-claims-lives-injures-hundreds-during-hajj-pilgrimage-near-mecca-saudi-arabia/story-fnh81ifq-122754259364

Previously: 'A year earlier, 340 pilgrims were killed in a fire at the tent city of Mina as the blaze was aided by high winds. More than 1,500 were injured.'

Surely they will put measures in place to stem this. Not currently acceptable by reasonable measures.

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If death is part of this ritual, then so be it

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If death is part of this ritual, then so be it

Really? So be it?

Did anyone say what caused the stampede?. .. Were they just trying to get to the front of the "line"?..

'Pilgrims had converged on Mina to throw pebbles at one of three walls representing Satan, the symbolic “stoning of the devil” that marks the last day of the event.'

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Apart from the fact that this happened during a religious festival, what element of "Spirituality, Religion and Beliefs" would you like to discuss? Religion is as much to blame here as Music was to blame for a relatively recent music event (can't recall which) in which several attendees were crushed to death while walking through a tunnel towards the event. Sounds more like a "Middle East News" type of topic, if you ask me. As such, I think that's the best place for this thread at this time.

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If death is part of this ritual, then so be it

I can understand such fatalism but I don't think death has to be a part of such a gathering. The fact that it continues to happen indicates that there is a flaw in the management of such large numbers of people. Hopefully the Saudis will study this problem and enforce traffic management or create a system that can stop such crushes as they begin. It's such a senseless loss of life. And no doubt a horrible way to perish.
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When I saw this in the news a few hours ago the death toll was reported as being around 300-310 with many more injured. I thought those figures were bad enough but now they're saying at least 717? . That number will probably go up too.

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I can understand such fatalism but I don't think death has to be a part of such a gathering. The fact that it continues to happen indicates that there is a flaw in the management of such large numbers of people. Hopefully the Saudis will study this problem and enforce traffic management or create a system that can stop such crushes as they begin. It's such a senseless loss of life. And no doubt a horrible way to perish.

According to the article from the OP there hasn't been an incident like this for ten years, after new measures back then were put in place. Innovation is always good, and they need to look into what they can do to prevent something like this in the future. But sometimes things just happen. Massive numbers of people, limited space, things can go wrong.
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According to the article from the OP there hasn't been an incident like this for ten years, after new measures back then were put in place. Innovation is always good, and they need to look into what they can do to prevent something like this in the future. But sometimes things just happen. Massive numbers of people, limited space, things can go wrong.

Yes also complacency when their previous measures seem to be doing the job. Hopefully something of this scale never happens again, but it probably will.

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Well, they could have had that big crane drop on them as well .

aptopix-saudi-crane-collapse.jpg

If it happened a few days later. Swarms of people .... swarms that aint natural .. and fur sure ... **** is going to happen !

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...But sometimes things just happen. Massive numbers of people, limited space, things can go wrong.

People will stampede over you to get away from other stampeding people. That's sad, understandable, as well as ironic. I'm sure that there's some sort of 'ripple effect' involved. A small disturbance (of some kind) just escalated out of control. There is no amount of 'crowd control' when the crowd is that large, and well, crowded.

This is horrible.

Edited by Likely Guy
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I had thought the Saudis had dealt with this potential already. It makes me wonder if their engineers are competent and if they don't need to seek outsiders for help. At least their reaction is honest (they don't try to hide anything) and the emergency responses were rapid.

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Well, Woodstock had a quarter of that number of people. A few people died and,a few people were born. The difference being is that Woodstock was held on an open field. There were no 'crush zones', people funneled into smaller areas with rigid fencing . Rigid fencing is all in the name of security, not safety.

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Considering 2.3 million people go to Hajj each year, accident numbers like this aren't that surprising to me.

They are intolerable. What could you be thinking?
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Latest -

Iran has led growing criticism of Saudi Arabia after at least 717 people died and 863 were injured in a stampede near the holy city of Mecca on Thursday.

Iran's Supreme National Security Council accused the Saudis of "incompetence" and urged them to "take responsibility" for the deaths.

Nigeria has dismissed remarks by the Saudi health minister blaming pilgrims for "not following instructions".

King Salman has ordered a safety review for the Hajj pilgrimage.

http://www.bbc.co.uk...e-east-34357383

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Apart from the fact that this happened during a religious festival, what element of "Spirituality, Religion and Beliefs" would you like to discuss? Religion is as much to blame here as Music was to blame for a relatively recent music event (can't recall which) in which several attendees were crushed to death while walking through a tunnel towards the event. Sounds more like a "Middle East News" type of topic, if you ask me. As such, I think that's the best place for this thread at this time.

Well, if large masses of people didn't believe they could throw rocks at the devil, then this pilgrimage wouldn't exist, and people wouldn't continue to get killed over it. So ultimately, yes, religion is a bit responsible.

Edited by ChaosRose
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Sad for those killed. 717 is a massive number of people being killed to just write off as an accident. Either there are poor processes in place to deal with this amount of people or it was instigated. Slightly off topic, it's nice to see in this day and age that people still take the time to go on a pilgrimage for their faith.

Edited by Harry_Dresden
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As far as I understand the situation is that it is made worse by the many repeat Haj Pilgrims ... a problem further complicated by the many different languages , customs and nationalities a little too eager to punish the 'devil' at Mina ~ no surprise is that's the location where most of the most devastating accidents previous to this occurs ~

~

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What has happened is dreadful - but I simply can't fathom why a massive crowd of people - feel the need to stampede... and

crush each other - just so they can throw some rocks at a wall.

Seriously - it gives the word "bizarre" a whole new meaning as far as some of these fanatical relgions and superstitions go.

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It comes with the territory where most if not all religions are concerned ~

~

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It comes with the territory where most if not all religions are concerned ~

~

I guess you could say that about

music: (11 people)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_The_Who_concert_disaster

Variety shows (189 children)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Hall_disaster

Sports: (66 people)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971_Ibrox_disaster

(96 people)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsborough_disaster

Theaters: (602 people)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iroquois_Theatre_Fire

Subways: (53 people)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niamiha_disaster

Bridges: (953 people)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_bridge_stampede

And many many more...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_stampedes

So it's not a "religion" problem... It's a "people" problem...

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~snip

So it's not a "religion" problem... It's a "people" problem...

In this particular place and time I would add there is more ~ I guess we differ here on the strictly defined particulars as to what constitutes as 'religion' as in organized or opposed to religious fervor ~

Mina comes with the kind of notoriety that does affect the faithful and its nothing uncommon to hear them say that there is the place where they expect Satan to appear ~ no one likes to linger and the stories, well they have to be heard to be believed, even then what's hard to believe is that they truly believes those stories ~

Its the other side of the coin that comes along with this :

Abrahamic Convergence – inspiration, forgiveness, and tragedy

posted by Aziz Poonawalla

This week is a truly portentous one for Muslims, Jews, and Catholics. In one week, we have Yom Kippur, the Day of Arafat and Eid ul Adha, and Pope Francis’ first visit to the United States. I like the term “Abrahamic Convergence” for this sort of thing – it emphasizes the commonality of themes in our faiths.

~ if the pilgrims would have spent more efforts to getting closer to Allah rather than on some zealous zeal to stone the devil

Mina is best known for the role it plays during the annual Hajj pilgrimage. More than 100,000 air-conditioned tents provide temporary accommodation to visiting pilgrims. In the valley of Mina is the Jamarat Bridge, the location of the ritual of the Stoning of the Devil, performed between sunrise and sunset on the last day of the Hajj. Mina is the place where pilgrims throw stones, commemorating the occasion that the Prophet Ibrâhîm (Abraham) stoned the Devil that came between him and the command Allah had set him. Many pilgrims at Ḥajj walk around the Ka`bah seven times, then visit the Well of Zamzam. Usually, they spend their first night in the Valley of Mina. This ritual occurs from the eighth to the twelfth day of the Ḥajj. At Mina, men and women are not allowed to sleep together.

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The thing I was trying to point out is that humans are not too dissimilar to any other herd animal... From time to time - regardless of what the "cause" is - we tend to

move in herds, and that leads to stampedes like the tragedy in Mina...

The spark of the stampede may have been "religious" in nature... But the action is ingrained in nature... And eliminating religion will not eliminate tragedies like this...

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