Several climate experts mention that these deaths provide a preview of what lies ahead for the tens of thousands of Muslims who are anticipated to do the hajj in the coming decades
About two million Muslims will complete their hajj this week, but hundreds of people who started their trek last Friday to the Kaaba at the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia perished due to the intense heat. According to Reuters, nearly 562 people have died, considering the data they collected from declarations and sources from foreign ministers.
The medical and security sources have mentioned that Egypt alone has recorded 307 deaths and another 118 missing persons as temperatures have occasionally risen above degrees Celsius (124 Fahrenheit).
According to a witness, bodies were covered in the white Ihram cloth, a basic pilgrims’ garment, and lay on the side of the road close to Mina, just outside of Mecca, until rescue trucks could reach.
Several climate experts mention that these deaths provide a preview of what lies ahead for the tens of thousands of Muslims who are anticipated to do the hajj in the coming decades.
“The haj has been conducted in a certain way for more than 1,000 years now, and it’s always been a hot climate,” Carl-Friedrich Schleussner, a scientific advisor at the German institution Climate Analytics, said. “But … the climate crisis is adding to the severity of the climate conditions”.
Pilgrims carry out religious rituals that the Prophet Muhammad, fourteen centuries ago, instructed his disciples to conduct during the haj to the Kaaba, a cube-shaped stone edifice at the Grand Mosque.
Schleussner claimed that several essential elements of the haj, including the customary ascent of Mount Arafat, have turned into activities that are “incredibly dangerous to human health.”
Things Might Be Worse
The lunar year, which causes the pilgrimage to advance by 10 days yearly, determines the haj’s date. Although the haj is currently heading toward winter, in the 2040s it will coincide with Saudi Arabia’s summer’s height.
According to Pakistan-based climate scientist Fahad Saeed of Climate Analytics, “It is going to be very fatal.”
Records of heat-related fatalities along the Haj date back to the 1400s, so they are not new.
Pilgrims are vulnerable due to an older population, severe physical activity, exposure to greater temperatures, and a lack of acclimation to these conditions.
According to Saudi officials, over 2,000 individuals experienced heat stress in the previous year. Scientists predicted that as the earth warms, the situation will get considerably worse.
In a 2021 study, Saeed and Schleussner opened a new tab in the journal Environmental Research Letters and discovered that pilgrims performing the haj will be five times more likely to suffer from heat stroke if global warming increases by 1.5 C (2.7 F) beyond pre-industrial levels. The globe is expected to warm by 1.5 degrees Celsius by the 2030s.
“People are very religiously motivated. For some of them, it is a once in a lifetime affair,” Saeed stated that for some of them, it is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. “If they get a chance, they go for it.”
New Plans
Saudi Arabia released a heat strategy in 2016 that included building covered places, placing drinking water stations every 500 meters, and expanding the country’s medical infrastructure.
During this haj, pilgrims are advised by Saudi health authorities to avoid being outside between the hours of 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. and to stay hydrated.
Mustafa, a pilgrim from Pakistan, said he had to push his mother, who is 75 years old, in a wheelchair. He claimed that the cops instructed them to keep moving when they attempted to rest.
“I was amazed to see that there were no efforts made by the Saudi government to provide any shelter or any water,” Mustafa stated.
An inquiry for comment was not immediately answered by the Saudi Arabian government’s media office.
According to an Egyptian medical source who spoke with Reuters, pilgrims who were not officially registered with haj authorities and were compelled to remain outside in the heat had the greatest death toll.
Sameh Al-Zayni, an Egyptian pilgrim, claimed to have gotten water from Saudi officials; a Reuters reporter reported that Saudi police were dispensing water to crowds and misting them to keep them cool.
According to scientists, water spraying works best at temperatures below approximately 35 C (95 F). Spraying water won’t help if the temperature is too high, and it might even increase the risk in humid environments where it’s difficult for individuals to sweat off heat.