At least 107 killed as crane crashes into Makkah's Grand Mosque

RIYADH: At least 107 people were killed and 238 others injured when a construction crane crashed into the Grand Mosque of Saudi Arabia's holy Muslim city of Makkah on Friday, the civil defence said on Twitter.

According to sources, the injured included 52 Pakistanis six of them are in critical condition.

Also Read: 52 Pakistanis among 238 injured in Makkah

Pictures circulating on social media showed bloodied bodies strewn across a courtyard where the top part of the crane, which appeared to have collapsed or snapped, had crashed into it.

The civil defence authority, which gave the casualty figures, said on Twitter that emergency teams were sent to the scene after a "crane fell at the Grand Mosque".

That came about an hour after it tweeted that Makkah was "witnessing medium to heavy rains".

The governor of Makkah , Prince Khaled al-Faisal, has ordered an investigation into the incident.

The incident occurred as hundreds of thousands of Muslims gather from all over the world for the annual hajj pilgrimage set to begin later this month.

The Grand Mosque (Masjid al-Haram) is usually at its most crowded on Fridays, the Muslim weekly day of prayer.

It houses the Khana-e-Kaaba (House of Allah) -- the massive cube-shaped structure towards which Muslims worldwide pray.

A massive project is currently underway to increase the area of the mosque by 400,000 square metres (4.3 million square feet), allowing it to accommodate up to 2.2 million people at once.

The mosque is surrounded by a number of cranes.

The hajj has largely been incident-free during the past few years, with Saudi Arabia investing billions of dollars in transport and other infrastructure to facilitate the movement of the huge numbers of people who take part.

The official SPA news agency said in a statement that by Friday, almost 800,000 pilgrims had arrived into the kingdom for hajj.

Pakistan’s President Mamnoon Husain and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif have expressed deep condolence on the sad demise of the pilgrims.

They prayed eternal peace for the departed souls with the bereaved families and the government of Saudi Arabia.

PM Nawaz has directed Pakistan's Ambassador in Saudi Arabia to provide every possible help to the injured and also personally visit the patients in hospitals.

He also gave directions to provide every possible help to families of the deceased.

Emergency contact numbers for Pakistani hajis:

08001166622
042-111725425
Saudi consulate number:
00 966 54 389 1481

Hajj will go ahead: Saudi official

This year´s hajj pilgrimage will go ahead despite the crane collapse, a Saudi official told AFP on Saturday.

"It definitely will not affect the hajj this season and the affected part will probably be fixed in a few days," said the official, who declined to be named.