al jazeera's hasan patel is at the grand mosque. hasan, just explain to us as an eyewitness what you heard and what you saw. >> reporter: hi barbara, basically i was standing around 500 yards in front of the gate that i that takes people into the main part of the complex. around 6:15, 6:30 in the evening, a lot of people running around, so i went back to the hotel and then i found that subsequent thly the crane had collapsed. at that time no real fatalities were reported but i've been speaking to afghan pilgrims and they recounted firsthand what took place. they saw a lot of bodies on the floor, many it seems were injured, many times instantly and what followed was a rush to the exit. right now i'm actually in a hotel closer to the encumbrance and all i can see is police cars have cordoned the area off. there are people coming out, still coming out of the mosque, but not many people allowed to go in. still coming in and out of the main road. >> and hasan, obviously, friday prayers are always going to be busy. but we are ten days away

let's talk to hasan patel close to the grand mosque.ast time we spoke, you said you'd seen a number of emergency vehicles going to and from the area. do you have any update on the number of casualties on what precisely appears to have happened? >> reporter: david what i've basically heard, and i talked to one police officer and he said that there's been no official confirmation yet. ambulances and emergency services are still going up and down in the main road into the grand mosque of mecca. rather than walking into the grand mosque, they're walking back out. i spoke to a lady from pakistan. she's part of a group of around 300 people that came on the tour. she hasn't been able to find anyone yet. she hasn't been able to speak to anyone from her group, and she's worried that something may have happened to them. there's a lot of people here trying to get a hold of loved ones. i spoke from someone from egypt who said that he lost his friend. he got the bad news he passed away while people are trying to escape from the grand mosque. >> i'm

. >> hasan patel, thank you so much for sharing your views and what you witnessed there with us. >>> and now we can cross to al jazeera hashem ahelbarra, from doha. the focus is really on the saudi authorities to make sure that everything goes smoothly and there hasn't been any accidents at hajj or any major ones for about a decade. there was a history of, before, of stampedes and fire. how much pressure do you think there is going to be on the saudi authorities to make sure everything goes smoothly and do you think they have the capacity to do that? >> reporter: well, it will definitely raise questions about the safety standards, at the grand mosque. you've been talking about the last decade when the saudis were having problems with the stampedes particularly during the symbolic stoning of the devil. saudi arabia managed to build massive bridges there and expand the roads, and ever since, never had any problems. but this new problem particularly at the grand mosque, and the kaba, serious in the sense that i was there two years ago to cover the story of hajj for al jazeera, a massive