At least 238 people were wounded, Saudi Arabia's Civil Defence body said
"All those who
were wounded and the dead have been taken to hospital. There are no
casualties left at the location," General Suleiman al-Amr, director
general of the Civil Defence Authority, told al-Ikhbariya television.
Strong wind and rains had uprooted trees and rocked cranes in the area,
he said.
A
statement by a spokesman for the administration of the mosques in Mecca
and Medina said the crane smashed into the part of the Grand Mosque
where worshippers circle the Kaaba - the black-clad cube towards which
the world's 1.6 billion Muslims face to pray.
Pictures circulating on social media showed pilgrims in
bloodied robes and debris from a part of the crane that appeared to have
crashed through a ceiling.
Saudi authorities go to great lengths to prepare for the
millions of Muslims who converge on Mecca to perform the sacred
pilgrimage. Last year, they reduced the numbers permitted to make the
haj pilgrimage on safety grounds because of construction work to enlarge
the Grand Mosque.
The haj, one of the largest religious gatherings in the world, has
been prone to disasters in the past, mainly from stampedes as pilgrims
rush to complete rituals and return home. Hundreds of pilgrims died in
such a crush in 2006.
Saudi authorities have since spent vast sums to expand the main
haj sites and improve Mecca's transport system, in an effort to prevent
more disasters.
Security services often ring Islam's sacred city with checkpoints and
other measures to prevent people arriving for the pilgrimage without
authorization.
Those procedures, aimed at reducing crowd pressure which can lead to
stampedes, fires and other hazards, have been intensified in recent
years as security threats grow throughout the Middle East.
(Reporting by Ali Abdelaty in Cairo; Additional reporting
by Mostafa Hashem; Writing by Yara Bayoumy; Editing by Andrew Roche and
Christian Plumb)
