At least 700 people are crushed to death and hundreds injured in stampede during Muslim pilgrimage in Mecca

At least 717 people have been crushed to death and hundreds of others hurt in a stampede of
pilgrims in one of the worst incidents in years to hit the Muslim Hajj in Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia's civil defence service said rescue operations were under way after the stampede in Mina, where almost two million pilgrims were taking part in the last major rite of the Hajj.
Pictures showed a horrific scene, with scores of bodies – the men dressed in the simple terry cloth garments worn during Hajj – lying amid crushed wheelchairs and water bottles along a sunbaked street.
Survivors assessed the scene from the top of roadside stalls near white tents as rescue workers in orange and yellow vests combed the
area, placing victims on stretchers and desperately trying to resuscitate others.
The disaster comes just two weeks after a construction crane collapsed at Mecca's Grand Mosque, Islam's holiest site, killing 109 people.

Pilgrims had converged on Mina just outside Mecca on Thursday to throw pebbles at one of three walls representing Satan, the symbolic
'stoning of the devil' that marks the last day of the event.
The civil defence service said that it was still counting the dead, who included pilgrims from different countries and that at least 863 people had also been hurt.
Iran said at least 43 of its citizens were dead and accused Saudi Arabia of safety errors that caused the accident.
But a Saudi minister blamed the pilgrims themselves, saying they had not followed the rules laid out by authorities.
'Many pilgrims move without respecting the timetables' set for the Hajj, Health Minister Khaled al-Falih told El-Ekhbariya television.
'If the pilgrims had followed instructions, this type of accident could have been avoided,' he
said, vowing a 'rapid and transparent' investigation.
The stampede began at around 9am (6am GMT), shortly after the civil defence service said on Twitter it was dealing with a 'crowding' incident in Mina, about three miles from Mecca.
A Sudanese pilgrim in Mina said this year's Hajj was the most poorly organised of four he had attended.
'People were already dehydrated and fainting' before the stampede, said the pilgrim who declined to be named.