To make this year's pilgrimage safer, authorities have expanded infrastructure, deployed thousands of extra personnel and relied on an arsenal of high-tech tools to help better manage crowds.
Hajj attendance falls short of record, as pilgrims crowd Mount Arafat
The data showed most of the faithful came from abroad. The Kingdom's officials had predicted more than 2.5 million pilgrims, making it the largest to date. But officials figures carried by the state-run Al Ekhbariya TV showed that the total number of pilgrims for this hajj season as 1.84 million.Record number of pilgrims, braving suffocating heat, converge for Hajj climax
After performing the ritual circumambulation of the Kaaba, the giant black cube at Mecca's Grand Mosque that Muslims pray towards each day, worshippers set off for Mina, about seven kilometers (more than four miles) away, in suffocating heat.
