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Comment by exmuslim | Hacker News Reader

>Article doesn't mention any steps the organizers are making to fix it

That's because they are making none. The "steps" (rituals) of Hajj have been the same for over 1400 years, there's no reason for such accidents to happen when you:

Know where people are headed.

When people are headed there.

The number of those people.

And most importantly UNLIMITED fucking ressources!

Knowing that many people lost their lives because incompetent idiots can't manage shit infuriates me and especially when a royal Saudi clerk (can't find an English source) says that the Sub-Saharan victims were better off dying in the "holy lands" than in their messy countries.

I am so glad I've renounced my religion, people often poke fun at the materialism of christianity by mentioning Indulgence and not realize Hajj is the most exploitive religious act anyone can engage in.

In essence, fuck the Saudi Royal Family.

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The Saudis have tried to fix the problem, but not very effectively. They've built lots of tunnels and ramps. But they tend to build hard-sided walkways without escape routes. They also have too many long pathways where people can't see what's happening ahead. So anything that causes a stoppage can cause a crush.

The Mina crush may have been started by a VIP visit by the Saudi minister of defense, with a big entourage, interfering with the traffic flow. The 1990 tunnel crush was triggered by some people falling off a bridge over the tunnel exit, stopping traffic at the exit to a long tunnel.

But it's the long, inescapable walkways which are the problem. There's a good analysis at a crowd safety site.[1]

A German firm did the crowd planning for the Grand Mosque capacity upgrade in 2010, and that seems to be working well.[2] That's six miles from Mina. The Grand Mosque area is now insanely overbuilt (the giant five star hotel with giant clock tower, run by Fairmont Hotels, across from the Kaaba, looks like something from Vegas) but has much more traffic capacity.

[1] http://www.workingwithcrowds.com/2015/09/hajj-pilgrimage-mor... [2] http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/computing/software/hajj-p...

Sounds like a blood clot.

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I apologize.

I agree.

I think expansion of the pathways and re-architecting the landscape to take on capacity has created conditions for "mega" stampedes, so instead of few people here and there, the stampede cascades and creates bigger chaos and takes more lives.

This is what happens when expansion of capacity is done without decent safety measures in place.

Safety measures aren't enough. The requirements are impossible: In finite time window T, N people attempt pass through finite region R. N increases every year, past the point where they just don't fit.

Number of peoples have not increased for last 10 years! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hajj#Number_of_pilgrims_per_ye...

Looks like some other factors contributed to this very unfortunate accident.

I saw the entire thread of comments under yours, and I'm glad that you were so willing to admit, you crossed a line, so I am commenting in general, just to understand better. And offer my thoughts, if you don't agree please explain to me why.

>I am so glad I've renounced my religion, people often poke fun at the materialism of christianity by mentioning Indulgence and not realize Hajj is the most exploitive religious act anyone can engage in.

Are you comfortable renouncing your religion? I personally prefer a secular prefix than an ex prefix. For example, couldn't you have just continued to be less religious. Making arguments based on science and known facts, to counter dogma. Without ever bracketing yourself as an 'ex'. I believe from within you can bring about more change in any community.

Also in that way, you continue to enjoy all the biryanis[1] and all the sewais[2], and all the nice fraternity - which is largely good. Just my opinion on whats healthier. I typically sincerely seek to understand all sides. And my view is extreme positions are harder to change (very obvious point I know).

[1] & [2] -- some nice Muslim food in the Indian subcontinent

Could not agree more, the House of Saud is a blight upon humanity and especially a blight upon Muslims around the world.

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