At least 345 Muslims were trampled to death in Saudi Arabia today during the symbolic stoning ritual to mark the final day of the haj pilgrimage. Hundreds of others were seriously injured.

The prilgrims were crushed when a stampede broke out among crowds filing past the three pillars of al-Jamarat, on a bridge on the outskirts of the holy city of Mecca.

Major-General Mansour al-Turki, an Interior Ministry spokesman, said that the pilgrims were rushing to complete the last of three days of the stoning ritual before sunset when they began to trip up over dropped luggage - most of the pilgrims carry their personal effects as they move between the various stages of the haj.

He said that 345 people were killed. State-run Saudi television Al-Ekhbariyah reported that most of the victims were from South Asia.

The stone pillars represent Satan's temptation of Abraham. The faithful traditionally pelt the devil with seven pebbles to purge themselves of sin, jostling as they take aim.

Hamad bin Abdullah Al-Maneh, the Saudi Health Minister, confirmed the death toll at 345 people and said 300 others were wounded in the accident which he blamed on "unruly pilgrims and a problem of luggage".

"Today, just after sunset, there was a big rush among the pilgrims which led a group of them to be killed or wounded," the minister said.

Footage from the scene showed lines of dead laid out on stretchers on the pavement and covered with sheets. Ambulances and police cars streamed into the area, and security forces tried to clear part of the site.

Ahmed Mustafa, an Egyptian pilgrim, said he saw bodies taken away in refrigerator trucks.

"There must be dozens of people dead," he said. "I heard screaming and I looked around and saw people jumping over each other. Police came and cordoned off the area. They starting pulling out bodies. The bodies were piled up. I couldn’t count them, they were too many."

Mina General Hospital, a small facility several hundred yards from the site, was filled with injured and some victims were sent to hospitals in Mecca and Riyadh.

The three pillars are located on a large pedestrian bridge over the desert plain of Mina on the outskirts of the holy city of Mecca. A number of ramps lead up to the bridge to give access to the site, and the stampede is thought to have begun at the base of one of the most northerly ramp.

The latest deaths come despite an attempt to increase safety at the al-Jamarat site, where the pillars that represent the devil have been rebuilt as 26-metre stone walls. These allow a greater number of people to throw their pebbles at the same time.

Walkways to the site have been widened and Shia Muslim clerics have issued religious edicts allowing pilgrims to start the ritual earlier in the morning. Saudi Arabia’s Sunni clerics, who follow the fundamentalist Wahhabi interpretation of Islam, still encourage pigrims to visit at noon.

The ritual has been attended by deadly stampedes in the past, including one in 1990 that killed 1,426 people and another in February 2004 that killed 244. This year new barriers were built and the pillars extended in an attempt to prevent a repeat of the tragedy.

The deadly haj

1990

1,426 pilgrims, mostly Asians, were trampled or asphyxiated to death during a stampede in a tunnel in Mina.

1987

402 people killed, including 275 Iranians, when security forces tried to break up a demonstration by Iranian pilgrims. Saudi Arabia and Iran cut off diplomatic ties in 1988 and Iranian pilgrims were absent from the haj until 1991.

1998

388 pilgrims were killed in two separate stampedes at Mina during the stoning ritual.

1997

343 killed and 1,500 injured when a gas heater caused a fire at a tent camp in the valley of Mina.

2004

251 pilgrims were killed and at least the same amount injured during the stoning ritual at Mina.

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