At Least 87 Killed After Crane Accident at Mecca's Grand Mosque

Powerful winds toppled a crane in Mecca's Grand Mosque on Friday, killing at least 87 people, Saudi Arabia's civil defense authority said on its Twitter account.

More than 180 people were also reportedly injured, according to the most recent reports from the civil defense authority. Al Arabiya television earlier said the crane had fallen because of strong storms — western Saudi Arabia has been hit by strong sand storms in the last few days.

"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 affected cranes in the area, he said.

Reports indicate the crane came crashing down shortly before the start of Friday evening prayers that were scheduled for 6:30pm. The accident comes just weeks before millions of Muslims will travel to the site for the annual Hajj pilgrimage on September 22.

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 circumambulate the Kaaba and where pilgrims walk between Mount Safa and Marwa.

Pictures circulating on social media showed pilgrims in bloodied robes and masses of debris from a part of the crane that seemed to have crashed through a ceiling.

Saudi authorities have spent vast sums of money to expand the main hajj sites and improve Mecca's transportation system in an effort to prevent incident like the stampede that occurred in 2006 in which hundreds of pilgrims died.

Security services often ring Islam's sacred city with checkpoints and other measures to prevent people arriving for the pilgrimage without authorization. Last year, the kingdom reduced the numbers permitted to perform hajj for safety reasons because of construction work to enlarge the Grand Mosque.

Those procedures have been intensified in recent years as security threats have grown throughout the Middle East.

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