A towering construction crane collapsed on Friday during a violent rainstorm in Saudi Arabia’s city of Mecca, Islam’s holiest site, crashing into the Grand Mosque and killing at least 87 people ahead of the start of the annual hajj pilgrimage later this month.


Videos and photos posted by social media users showed a grisly scene, with police and onlookers attending to bloodied bodies on the polished mosque floors.Saudi Arabia’s civil defense authority provided a series of rising casualty numbers on its official Twitter account. As of late Friday, it said those injured in the disaster numbered 184.

Authorities did not provide details on the victims’ nationalities, but it was likely that the tragedy will touch several countries.

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