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Comment by mercy_dude | Hacker News Reader

So fascinating. Hajj is very tolling and expensive. I used to always complain the Saudi government does a good job in my opinion but there is still left to be desired in terms of management and accommodation conditions. But after seeing how it used to take 62 days to go to hajj and another 62 presumably to come back, it pales the comparison.

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This has stopped now that hajj costs about 15k SAR(3K USD).

Hajj this year is way more organized and luxurious because there were only 1 million Hajis since its became expensive.

> Saudi government does a good job in my opinion

The fact that people die every year because of stampedes is to me a testament to their failure. They have infinite resources and a religious benefit to make sure that does not happen and still it does.

Every year? It's usually over 5 years between major incidents.

There's not much they can do about the crowds, except limit the number of people who perform pilgrimage every year.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/03/hajj-crush-how...

I'm not a big fan of the Saudi government, but people die in stampedes there EVERY year? As someone who follows the hajj closely, the last stampede was in 2015, and previously 2006. Not that these are insignificant, but they are a rarity considering some 2 million people descend into a small city over a 10 day period. And there have been commendable efforts to avoid a repeat.

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