Mecca stampede: At least 310 killed and hundreds injured in crush during hajj.

At least 310 pilgrims were killed on Thursday in a crush at Mina, outside the Muslim holy city of Mecca, where some two million people are performing the annual hajj pilgrimage, Saudi Arabia's civil defence authority said.
At least 450 others were injured in the crush, which took place on Street 204 of the camp city at Mina, a few miles east of Mecca, where pilgrims stay for several days during the climax of the hajj.The pilgrimage, one of the world's largest annual gathering of people, has been the scene of deadly disasters in the past, including stampedes, tent fires and riots.
"The counting (of the victims) continues and the number of dead has reached 310 people of different nationalities," it said on Twitter after the incident.
An Arab pilgrim who did not want to give his name said he had hoped to perform the stoning ritual later on Thursday afternoon but was now too frightened to risk doing so.
"I am very tired already and after this I can't go. I will wait for the night and if it not resolved, I will see if maybe somebody else can do it on my behalf," he said.

The last major incident in hajj took place in 2006, when at least 346 pilgrims were killed as they attempted to perform the stoning of the devil at Jamarat.
In 1990, nearly 1,500 were killed in a tunnel that was leading to a holy site while a fire in 1997 killed 343 and injured 1,500. More than 25,000 Britons go annually for the hajj, according to the British Hajj Delegation. The organisation said on its website that the UK was the first Western non-Muslim country to send a hajj delegation to assist UK citizens.
The Foreign Office said in a statement it was looking into reports. A spokesman said: “We are in contact with local authorities and urgently seeking more information following reports of a crush during the Hajj pilgrimage at Mecca.”
However, massive infrastructure upgrades and extensive spending on crowd control technology over the past two decades had made such events far less common.
Street 204 is one of the two main arteries leading through the camp at Mina to Jamarat, where pilgrims ritually stone the devil by hurling pebbles at three large pillars.
Reuters reporters in another part of Mina said they could hear police and ambulance sirens, but that roads leading to the site of the disaster had been blocked to prevent a further crowds developing.
Photographs published on the civil defence Twitter feed showed pilgrims lying on stretchers while emergency workers in high-visibility jackets lifted them into an ambulance.

From Telegraph.