Amid scorching heat, 900 people died this week in Saudi Arabia. Climate change has made the Hajj pilgrimage more risky

By Milad Haghani, UNSW Sydney

Each year, millions of Muslims from across the world embark on the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. The mass migration is unparalleled in scale, and pilgrims face numerous health hazards.

Mecca is considered the holiest city for Muslims. And Hajj is one of the Five Pillars of Islam, making it a mandatory religious duty for Muslims to perform at least once in their lifetime if they are physically and financially capable.

The 2024 Hajj pilgrimage has been overshadowed by disaster/tragedy, with the death of at least 900 pilgrims, mostly due to heat exhaustion and related complications.

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This isn’t the first deadly disaster during Hajj

One of the most devastating incidents occurred in 2015 during the ritual of “Rami al-Jamarat” in Mina, near Mecca. This ritual involves pilgrims throwing stones at pillars symbolising the devil. On that day, overcrowding and the movement of large groups of pilgrims in opposite directions led to a deadly crowd crush. More than 2,400 pilgrims lost their lives, making it one of the deadliest disasters in the history of Hajj or any mass gathering.

Another mass casualty event occurred in 1990, in the Al-Ma'aisem pedestrian tunnel near Mecca, which led to the holy sites. A combination of ventilation failure and an enormous influx of pilgrims caused a suffocating crush inside the tunnel; 1,426 pilgrims died.

There have also been other incidents during the Hajj pilgrimage over the years. In 1994, a stampede near the Jamarat Bridge resulted in the deaths of around 270 pilgrims. The 1998 Hajj saw 118 pilgrims killed in another stampede.

Over the past half-century, more than 9,000 people have died in mass religious gatherings, with more than 5,000 of these occurring during the Hajj in Saudi Arabia. India follows with at least 2,200 deaths across nearly 40 tragic events. These two countries are hotspots for such tragedies.

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