by Our Foreign Desk

MORE than 700 Muslim pilgrims were crushed or trampled to death near the holy city of Mecca yesterday when chaos erupted during the symbolic stoning of the devil.

Official figures released by the Saudi civil defence directorate showed 717 pilgrims dead and 863 injured in the deadliest tragedy to strike the annual hajj pilgrimage in more than two decades.

The mayhem struck as Muslims around the world marked the start of the Eid al-Adha holiday.

It was the second major disaster during this year’s hajj season, raising questions about the adequacy of measures put in place by Saudi authorities to ensure the safety of the roughly 2 million Muslims taking part.

A crane collapse in Mecca nearly two weeks earlier left 111 people dead.

Yesterday’s tragedy happened as pilgrims were on their way to perform a symbolic stoning of the devil by throwing pebbles against stone columns in Mina, a valley about three miles from Mecca that has been the site of hajj stampedes in years past.

The area accommodates more than 160,000 tents where pilgrims spend the night during the pilgrimage.

Two survivors said that the disaster had begun when one wave of pilgrims found themselves heading into a mass of people going in another direction.

“I saw someone trip over someone in a wheelchair and several people tripping over him. People were climbing over one another just to breathe,” said Abdullah Lotfy from Egypt.

“It was like a wave. You go forward and suddenly you go back.”

Ismail Hamba from Nigeria recalled falling down and being trampled, saying: “It was terrible, it was really, really terrible.”

A security force of about 100,000 officers has been deployed this year to oversee crowd management and ensure pilgrims’ safety during the five-day pilgrimage.

Interior Ministry spokesman Major-General Mansour al-Turki said that King Salman has ordered the creation of a committee to investigate the incident.

At least 47 Iranian pilgrims perished and at least 60 were injured in yesterday’s crush, according to Iranian hajj agency official Saeed Ohadi.

He blamed Saudi Arabia for “safety errors” and told Iranian state TV that “mismanagement by the Saudis” had led to the tragedy.