Stampedes and Failures of Crowd Control
Sometimes the surging crowds, trekking from one station of the pilgrimage to the next, cause a stampede. Panic spreads, pilgrims jostle to avoid being trampled, and hundreds of deaths can occur as a result. The stoning of the devil ceremony is particularly crowded and dangerous. Some notable incidents include:
- July 2, 1990 : A stampede inside a pedestrian tunnel (Al-Ma'aisim tunnel) leading out from Mecca towards Mina, Saudi Arabia and the Plains of Arafat led to the deaths of 1,426 pilgrims.
- May 23, 1994 : A stampede killed at least 270 pilgrims at the stoning of the Devil ritual.
- April 9, 1998: at least 118 pilgrims were trampled to death and 180 injured in an incident on Jamarat Bridge.
- March 5, 2001: Thirty five pilgrims were trampled to death in a stampede during the stoning of the Devil ritual.
- February 11, 2003: The stoning of the Devil ritual claimed 14 pilgrims' lives.
- February 1, 2004: 251 pilgrims were killed and another 244 injured in a stampede during the stoning ritual in Mina.
- January 12, 2006: A stampede during the ritual ramy al-jamarāt on the last day of the Hajj in Mina killed at least 346 pilgrims and injured at least 289 more. The incident occurred shortly after 13:00 local time, when a busload of travellers arrived together at the eastern access ramps to the Jamarat Bridge. This caused pilgrims to trip, rapidly resulting in a lethal crush. An estimated two million people were performing the ritual at the time.
Read more about this topic: Incidents During The Hajj
Famous quotes containing the words failures, crowd and/or control:
“Half the failures of this world arise from pulling in one’s horse as he is leaping.”
—Julius Hare (1795–1855)
“It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of a crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“There has been something crude and heartless and unfeeling in our haste to succeed and be great. Our thought has been “Let every man look out for himself, let every generation look out for itself,” while we reared giant machinery which made it impossible that any but those who stood at the levers of control should have any chance to look out for themselves.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)