Iran’s FM Offers Condolences over Mecca Crane Crash
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif offered condolences to those who lost loved ones in the collapse of a large construction crane while getting ready to make Hajj pilgrimage in the Saudi city of Mecca.
In a message on Saturday, the top Iranian diplomat expressed deep sorrow at the deaths and injuries in the incident in Mecca’s Masjid al-Haram (the Grand Mosque).
He also hope that the pilgrims would perform the religious rites in a clam and secured situation during the rest of the Hajj pilgrimage season and return home safe and sound.
Zarif said the Iranian diplomatic missions in Saudi Arabia are duty-bound to serve the country’s nationals during Hajj and take care of those injured in the incident.
On Friday evening, a large construction crane toppled over during a violent rainstorm and crashed into the mosque, killing at least 107 pilgrims and wounding 238 others.
One Iranian national was among the dead and 25 other Iranian pilgrims were injured.
The crane fell 10 days before the start of the Hajj, an annual pilgrimage expected to bring 2 million people to Mecca.
Masjid al-Haram is the world’s largest mosque and houses the Kaaba, the black cube that Muslims around the world pray toward and which they walk around during the pilgrimage.
The Saudi government is in the midst of a multibillion-dollar project to enlarge the mosque, and the site is currently ringed with cranes.
Large-scale deadly accidents during hajj have occurred on a number of occasions in years past.
In 2006, more than 360 pilgrims died in a stampede at the desert plain of Mina, near Mecca. A crush of pilgrims two years earlier left 244 dead.
The worst hajj-related tragedy was in 1990, when 1,426 pilgrims died in a stampede in an overcrowded pedestrian tunnel leading to holy sites in Mecca.