The death toll at the Hajj, the annual Islamic rituals, surged past 900, reports said Wednesday.
The pilgrimage, which were carried out in scorching heat, has led to friends and family searching for missing individuals.
Temperatures hit 51.8 degrees Celsius (125 Fahrenheit) in Mecca, Islam’s holiest city, on Monday, leaving relatives fearing the worst.
An Arab diplomat told AFP that deaths among Egyptians alone had jumped to “at least 600”, from more than 300 a day earlier, mostly from the unforgiving heat.
That figure brought the total reported dead so far to 922, according to an AFP tally of figures released by various countries.
Besides Egypt, deaths have been reported in Jordan, Indonesia, Iran, Nigeria, Senegal, Tunisia, and the Kurdistan region of Iraq, although many officials have not detailed the reasons.
A second Arab diplomat informed AFP on Wednesday that Jordanian authorities were searching for 20 missing pilgrims, although 80 others previously reported missing had been found in hospitals.
An Asian diplomat told AFP that about 68 people from India had died and that others were unaccounted for.
“Some (died) because of natural causes and we had many old-age pilgrims. And some are due to the weather conditions, that’s what we assume,” he said.
Saudi Arabia has not released details on fatalities, but on Sunday alone, it reported over 2,700 cases of “heat exhaustion.”
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Credit – AFP
