At least 87 people have died after a crane collapsed on the Grand Mosque in the Muslim holy city of Mecca on Friday, Saudi Arabian government said.
The civil defence said on its Twitter account 180 people were injured in the accident. Al Arabiya television earlier said the crane had fallen because of strong storms - western Saudi Arabia has been hit by strong sand storms in the last few days, the Reuters reported.
40 Bangladeshis received minor injuries in the accident, State Minister for Foreign Affairs Shahriar Alam said in a Facebook post. He said, "All are out of danger, Alhamdulillah."
Crane collapses on Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Photo: Stringer/EPA
Construction work to expand the Grand Mosque has been going on for a long time, the BBC's Arab Affairs analyst Sebastian Usher said.
It is not clear what happened, but images from the scene showed part of a huge red crane had crashed through the mosque roof.
The Reuters report said: "Pictures circulating on social media showed pilgrims in bloodied robes and masses of debris from a part of the crane that seemed to have crashed through a ceiling."
Mecca is preparing for the annual Muslim Hajj pilgrimage.
The pilgrimage, one of the largest religious gatherings in the world, has been prone to disasters in the past, mainly from stampedes as pilgrims rushed to complete rituals and return home. Hundreds of pilgrims died in such a stampede in 2006.
Saudi authorities have since lavished vast sums to expand the main hajj sites and improve Mecca's transportation system, in an effort to prevent more disasters.
Security services often ring Islam's sacred city with checkpoints and other measures to prevent people arriving for the pilgrimage without authorization.
Those procedures, aimed at reducing crowd pressure which can lead to stampedes, fires and other hazards, have been intensified in recent years as security threats grow throughout the Middle East.
