Iran demands investigation into Hajj stampede

At the UN on Saturday, Iranian president Hassan Rouhani implored for an investigation of the stampede that killed more than 700 people during the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia.

Rouhani expressed the tragedy as "heart-rending".

He also emphasized “the need for swift attention to the injured as well as investigating the causes of this incident and other similar incidents in this years' hajj”.

Rouhani’s use of a UN summit meeting to demonstrate his country’s fury shows that Iran does not plan to quiet its criticism of its main rival.

On Saturday, the Saudi health ministry updated its death toll of the hajj disaster to 769 pilgrims killed and 934 injured. It did not state how many of those dead and injured come from different nationalities. Tehran claims that more than 130 of the dead were Iranian.

Earlier, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei blamed "improper measures" and "mismanagement" by Saudi authorities, who he said "must accept the huge responsibility for this catastrophe".

Rouhani’s remarks came immediately following Saudi Arabia’s top religious leader pardoning the Saudi family of any responsibility.

"You are not responsible for what happened," Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh told Crown Prince and Interior Minister Mohammed bin Nayef in a meeting in Mina on Friday, the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported on Saturday.

"As for the things that humans cannot control, you are not blamed for them. Fate and destiny are inevitable," he added.

Prince Khaled al-Faisal, who is in charge of the Central Hajj Committee, said the stampede was started by "some pilgrims from African nationalities," according to a segment aired on the Saudi-owned al-Arabiya broadcast network.

Saturday marked the final day of the Hajj. No other incidents have been reported.

The crush occurred on Thursday morning when two million pilgrims participated in the Hajj's final tradition.

The disaster came as the world's 1.5 billion Muslims marked Eid al-Adha, the Feast of Sacrifice, the most important holiday on the Islamic calendar.

With temperatures at around a scorching 46 degrees Celsius, the stampede happened when two throngs of pilgrims converged at right angles on an intersection near Jamarat Bridge in Mina.

It was the second major accident this year for Hajj pilgrims, after a construction crane collapsed on September 11 at Mecca's Grand Mosque, Islam's holiest site, killing 109 people, including many foreigners.