2.5 million begin Haj amid rain

MAKKAH (AFP) - Millions of the faithful have prepared to perform the worlds largest annual religious pilgrimage on Wednesday overshadowed by the swine flu pandemic as 2.5 million Muslims amassed at the holy city of Makkah for the Haj.
A rare rainstorm hit the four-day Haj, but Saudi officials said they were prepared for all eventualities.
A sea of pilgrims from all over the world, dressed in flowing white robes, surrounded the Kaaba inside Makkahs Grand Mosque for dawn prayers Wednesday.
Four pilgrims, all of them already suffering from other health problems, had died from swine flu ahead of the official start of the rites.
But proven and suspected infections from the A(H1N1) flu amid Haj participants only number 67, Saudi health ministry spokesman Dr Khaled Marghlani told AFP.
Everything is going smoothly, thanks to God, he said.
Relatively few pilgrims could be seen wearing surgical masks widely distributed by the Saudi health ministry, despite the first report of H1N1 deaths on Saturday.
The infections detected so far were scattered among pilgrims from different countries and no concentration in any one source, Marghlani said.
Likewise, the four dead had arrived from four different countries, three from Asia and one from Africa.
Meanwhile, ten people were killed by flooding in Saudi Arabias Red Sea port city of Jeddah and more deaths were feared, a civil defence official said after a massive downpour on Wednesday.
I confirm that its ten bodies but I cant say anything more for now, the official said, requesting anonymity.
The storm struck the city in western Saudi Arabia in the morning, flooding streets. In one part of the city a bus could be seen submerged in several metres (feet) of water in an underpass.
One person told AFP by telephone he had seen several bodies beside another bus that overturned in the storm.
Major roads elsewhere in the city remained gridlocked by traffic late on Wednesday after the rain stopped and floodwaters receded, witnesses said.
Marghlani said the threat of heavy rains on Wednesday could raise the health risks for pilgrims, but that health authorities had planned for this possibility.
While Saudis have banned any political acts that may disrupt the Haj, the Iranians said they will go ahead with the ritual chanting of death to Israel, death to the United States and call for unity among Muslims around the world.
Traffic was jammed around Makkah late Tuesday as hundreds of thousands of latecomers arrived in the western Saudi Arabia city to launch into the rites of the Haj, required for all able Muslims at least once in their lifetime.
The rites begin with the tawaf, the circling seven times of the cubic Kaaba building in the centre of the massive, one-million-person capacity Grand Mosque, in whose direction all Muslims around the world pray.
Pilgrims then proceed to Mina to spend the night before climbing Mount Arafat, near where Prophet Mohammed(PBUH) gave his final sermon, to recite the holy Quran and pray.
On Wednesday afternoon, tens of thousands of people were plodding through the rain on the eight-km trek to Mina, while others took buses.
Rains remained relatively light compared to nearby Jeddah where roads were inundated and impassable from a downpour.
Flooding in Makkah could complicate the movement of so many people, with drainage systems limited in normally parched Saudi Arabia.
Flooding in the Mina tent city would be a catastrophe, said Karim Saleh, 34, a pilgrim from Qatar.
Authorities were expecting about two million foreigners this year for the annual pilgrimage. But the number of pilgrims from inside the kingdom, which can top half a million, is expected to be sharply down this year due to fears about the flu.