JEDDAH, 8 July — An infant and an old woman were trampled to death and several others injured in a stampede following a false fire alarm at a wedding hall in Al-Khurma, a town 100 km to the east of Makkah, Okaz daily reported yesterday.
Makkah Governor Prince Abdul Majeed ordered immediate steps to help the victims.
The stampede started when a watchman at the female section in the hall told the women to escape from the hall as a fire had broken out. He was actually misinformed by some female guests that a short-circuited air-conditioner had caused a fire in their section.
The bodies of a female infant and an old woman were found after order was restored. Several women had fainted and suffered injuries of varying degrees such as broken bones and cuts.
Civil Defense officials, who rushed to the scene, found no sign of fire or short-circuit.
The bodies were transferred to Khurma General Hospital.
Women’s shoes and handbags and children’s toys, sweets and biscuits were seen strewn in front of the inner gate of the wedding hall.
Lt. Abdul Rahman Al-Dimaiji, acting director of Civil Defense in the city, said the hall had been refused a license earlier as the building lacked sufficient safety measures. He also had instructed the city’s municipal authority on an earlier occasion not to issue license for the building if the safety system was not improved.
Meanwhile, the largest wedding hall in Jizan collapsed a few hours after a wedding feast on Saturday. No-one was inside the building at the time of the accident. According to a Civil Defense official the building was found in good condition a week ago when safety inspectors visited it.
The officials attributed the cause of the crash to some technical flaw in the foundation while the owner of the building, Abdullah Al-Nouri said the SR10 million building was supposed to have a life of 60 years while it was built only five years ago.
Rent advances paid by clients will be refunded. The hall was fully booked for the summer season.
