JEDDAH, 28 August 2005 — The SR4 billion Jamrat expansion project in Mina, to be carried out in four phases, will help nearly four million pilgrims perform the ritual of stoning the devil in one day, according to Dr. Habib Zain Al-Abideen, deputy minister for municipal and rural affairs. He said the authorities have already allocated SR4 billion for the project, adding that the Binladin Group, which won the contract, would start work on the project soon after the coming Haj season. He said the new Jamrat would have four floors apart from the ground floor.
The project will ensure the smooth flow of pilgrims at Jamrat and prevent the stampedes which have killed several people during Haj in the past. The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah has shown a keen interest in the project.
On Friday, King Abdullah accompanied by top officials including Makkah Governor Prince Abdul Majeed inspected the progress of the work. Bakr Binladin, chairman of Binladin Group, briefed the king on the project, which will be completed in four years.
According to Zain Al-Abideen, the project includes expansion of the area around Jamrat, automatic cleaning of the area and transportation of pilgrims from tents to the Jamrat and back by train. The new Jamrat will have electronic stairs, 12 entrances and 12 exits and will be linked with tents by hanging bridges. King Fahd Haj Research Institute prepared the plan for the new project in association with the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs’ branch office in Makkah.
“Each floor will be 85 meters wide, and 10 meters high,” Okaz quoted the official as saying. The project also includes three tunnels. First-aid services will be available underground which will be linked by tunnels. No vehicles will be allowed to enter the area around the Jamrat and vehicles will move through the tunnels, he explained.
The Jamrat Bridge will have medical clinics and operation facilities to deal with emergency cases. It will also have an advanced air-conditioning system.
All garbage and stones will be transferred automatically from the ground floor to the underground area. There will be a mechanized storage area and trucks will take the debris out of Mina. “The five-floor facility will accommodate up to 500,000 pilgrims per hour. This will accommodate three to five million pilgrims per year,” said Dr. Osama Fadul Albar, dean of the King Fahd Institute, an affiliate of Umm Al-Qura University.
“Whenever you expand it, you get more flow. So we decided to change it to an elliptical shape with a wall about 36 meters long. Also, because of the 12 entrances and 12 exits, people will never face an opposite traffic flow,” Dr. Muhammad Abdullah Edrees, head of the Institute’s team for designing the Jamrat Project, said.
“We faced a problem in the beginning with how to connect the fourth floor with a ramp. We found that the level of the fourth floor is parallel to the level of King Abdul Aziz Street, the high area of Mina so rather than let people go down and take the bridge, we connected the fourth floor directly with this street,” he said.
