Duncan MacDonald
Jakarta 19 June 2013
Between Arafat and Makkah lies the tented city called Mina. It is used to house most of the 2 + million pilgrims who take part in the annaul Haj. Twenty people are housed in each tent. There are 3 toilets for each tent.
The pilgrims go to Mount Arafat, then back to Mina where they stone the Devil, with stones they collect from Arafat. They then proceed on to Makkah to perform the ceremonies at the Ka'ba and Sa-i.
All this requires lot of buses.
There have been many serious accidents during the Haj. On July 2 1990, a stampede inside a pedestrian tunnel called Al-Ma'aisim, leading from Mecca towards Mina and the Plains of Arafat led to the deaths of 1,426 pilgrims. Many of them Malaysian, Indonesian and Pakistani.
Click on enlarge under the photo to see a larger image.
