Stampede Leaves 700 dead
Article By: Ben Hubbard SEPT. 24, 2015
What happend
In this article Ben talks about the stampede that toke place near Mecca in Saudi Arabia.He discusses how Muslim pilgrims were making their way between cities of air-conditioned tents toward the next stop on their tour of Mecca in Saudi Arabia.Then something went disastrously wrong, trapping the crowds in narrow streets and touching off a mass panic. this crushing stampede left approximately seven hundred and seventeen dead and around eight hundred and fifty injured.The stampede was the latest in a series of crises that have plagued the pilgrimage this season: Just two weeks before hand,a crane collapsed killing more than one hundred visitors, and hotel fires have injured others.
King Salman feels that this was his own personal responsibility for Mecca and Medina. he has since expressed his condolences for the dead in an address that aired on Saudi state television. Other officials appeared to blame the dead. "the stampede may have been caused by some pilgrims who didn’t follow the guidelines and instructions issued by the responsible authorities" they said. But some present in the area at the time said security forces had temporarily closed exits from an area packed with pilgrims, which ultimately led to the stampede.Khalid Saleh, a Saudi government employee who rushed to the site when he heard screams and sirens, said he had found “huge numbers of people on the ground either dying or injured.”The stampede was the deadliest thing ever since 1990, when 1,426 pilgrims died in a stampede in a tunnel linking Mecca and Mina.
My Thoughts
i thought this was insane because I've never read anything like this before and i thought it would be important to know even though it doesn't affect us. thanks for listening.