Questions, finger-pointing after stampede at Hajj kills over 700

(CNN)Bodies piled upon bodies. A few people still moving while others appear lifeless. Rescue workers struggling to reach those still alive by pulling the dead out of the way.

A day after a deadly crush killed 717 people during Hajj in Saudi Arabia, a critical question remained Friday: what caused the chaotic stampede?

Saudi officials are trying to figure out what went horribly wrong this week during theannual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca and Mina. But some who made the journey said various factors may have played a role.


Too many people, too little time



Hajj: The pilgrimage to Mecca01:39

More than 2 million Muslims from around the world are in Saudi Arabia for Hajj, a pilgrimage that all Muslims who have the financial and physical ability must make at some point in their lives. Many have saved for decades to make the journey.


And the millions of people must perform a litany of rituals in five days, including the symbolic stoning of the devil in Mina -- about 2 miles away from Mecca.



That's where Thursday morning's deadly stampede took place, killing 717 people and injuring about 900 more. Thursday was day three of the five-day Hajj.

"There's so little time to complete the rituals," Hajj pilgrim Ethar El-Katatney said.

Journalist Khaled Al-Maeena said he believes pilgrims rushing to finish could have been the main reason for the stampede.

"People like to do the first stoning in the morning," he told CNN from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Extreme heat and exhaustion




Hajj stampede tragedy kills at least 717 pilgrims 01:54

The journey is physically grueling enough on its own.

But with temperatures soaring over 43 degrees Celsius (110 degrees Fahrenheit), anyone who succumbs to the elements might collapse and never recover, El-Katatney said.

"I was out for a couple of hours just kind of taking photos, recording. And just two hours standing in the sun makes you so dizzy and so incredibly faint," she said from Mina.

"But regardless, people were still continuing to ... their ritual, where the stampede happened."

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El-Katatney said the sight of the carnage was simply "horrendous."

"It's literally a pile of bodies of people who ... pushed, they shoved, they panicked, they screamed," she said. "It was hot, someone fell, others trampled and they got stampeded."

El-Katatney said she talked to some of the men who were caught in mayhem.

"They told me how if you fell, if you weren't strong enough to withstand the pushing and shoving ... if you fell, you weren't going to get up again."


Crushed from opposite directions

El-Katatney said pilgrims were trying to push their way in opposite directions -- some headed to the site of the stoning, some coming back from their previous ritual.

After the stampede, it took hours for rescue workers to try to tend to all those trampled.

"The ambulances, the sirens were overwhelming," El-Katatney said. "For hours and hours, you could hear them constantly."

Inexperience and confusion

Even though Saudi officials are extremely versed in hosting Hajj crowds, many of the pilgrims are making the journey for the first time -- and might not be prepared to follow all directions or handle the chaos.


Maj. Gen. Mansour Al-Turki, the interior ministry's security spokesman, hinted that the problem may have stemmed from some pilgrims not following established guidelines, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

"They could go on their own, or try to take a shortcut," journalist Jamal Khashoggi of the Saudi El Arab TV told CNN.

The incident is the deadliest disaster at Mina since 1990, when 1,426 people died.

Hundreds of other pilgrims have been killed in past years during the same ceremony. And Thursday's disaster came 13 days after a crane collapse killed more than 100 people at another major Islamic holy site, the Grand Mosque in Mecca