For Nadira Kidwai, a Haj pilgrim from Lucknow Uttar Pradesh, it was a nightmare she would like to forget.
Kidwai was in the milling crowd of pilgrims during the ritual stoning of Satan ritual on the last day of the Haj pilgrimage Friday.
"I saw people moving and suddenly I heard crying, shouting, wailing. I looked around and people were piling on each other. They started pulling dead people from the crowd," Kidwai said.
Grief-stricken relatives were rushing along the lanes looking for missing loved ones.
All of a sudden a huge mass of people surged toward the pillar representing Satan, resulting in the stampede.
"Others tried to pull them up, but the crowd was so big that they were trampled and died. Bodies were scattered all around. I bumped into a dead body," a Saudi daily quoted Kidwai as saying.
She was however lucky to be reunited with her missing brother.
But many others did not share her good fortune. Initial examination of the casualties showed that Indians, Pakistanis and Egyptians were among the dead.
Reports in Dubai said one of the reasons for the accident was that pilgrims are new to the rituals and not aware of the danger of rushing forward.
The people come from different parts of the world and speak many languages, which makes communication difficult and even simple warnings on loudspeakers like "do not rush forward" are not understood, the reports added.
The pilgrims in Mina Thursday night had a tough time trying to locate the members of their groups and were showing their ID cards and bracelets to passers-by in a desperate attempt to locate their tents, according to an Indian Consulate official.
He said the problem had been compounded by the fact that thousands of pilgrims, both from within Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, were performing Haj without going through the licensed establishments.
Also, the presence of squatters on the Jamrat route has worsened the situation, he added.
"Portable tents were creating a big problem as the squatters were occupying almost 75 per cent of the road. This has impeded the free flow of pilgrims," he noted.
Muhammad Ali, another eyewitness who is injured and in hospital, said that he felt huge pressure coming from behind that made him step over people that fell underneath him.
"I felt very sorry and I want to help them, but I could not do much. I was (stepping) over 20 or 30 people, I cannot remember. I thought my time had come, but all of a sudden I was rescued by a police officer," said Ali. "Illegal pilgrims were the cause of the tragedy," said an Egyptian pilgrim.
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