310 Lost Lives n Many More Injured At Pilgrimage

Witnesses said the stampede happened on Street 204, one of the main roads leading through the camp set up for pilgrims to get to the three stone walls, known as Jamarat.

Nothing less than three-hundred and ten people have died and hundreds more are injured after a stampede on the edge of Mecca, Saudi authorities say.

Civil defence officials said at least four-hundred-and-fifty people were injured in the crush at Mina, on the outskirts of the Muslim holy city where some two million people are at the annual pilgrimage.

Thousands of rescue workers and hundreds of ambulances are reported to have been sent to the scene.

Mina is where pilgrims go to carry out a symbolic stoning of the devil by throwing pebbles against stone walls.

The deaths come on the first day of Eid, traditionally the most hazardous day of the Hajj because so many people are trying to perform rituals at the same time.

It also comes less than two weeks after a giant crane crashed down on the Grand Mosque in Mecca, the site which is the focal point for the pilgrimage.

At least 111 people died then and more than 390 were injured.

The last time so many people died at the Hajj was in 2006 when more than 360 pilgrims were killed in a stampede in the same area

The pilgrimage lasts for five days.