The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia seeks to prevent heat deaths with the start of Hajj

More than 1.4 million Muslims have started Hajj Hajj this year in the holy city of Makkah, a year after the death of 1,300 people, most of them due to severe heat.

The Saudi authorities say they have climbed safety reserves for the annual event.

They planted thousands of trees and installed hundreds of cooling units to help reduce temperature expectations to reach 44C (111f).

They also banned the children under the age of 12, warned the pilgrims who were trying to make the pilgrimage without an official permit to face a fine of $ 5,000 (3685 pounds) and prohibit entry for 10 years.

As of Sunday, officials said they prevented more than 269,000 people from entering Mecca.

The officials said that 80 % of the pilgrims who died last year, including hundreds of Egyptians and Indonesians, were not registered and thus lacking access to appropriate air -conditioned, transportation and other amenities when temperatures reached 51 degrees Celsius.

Many Muslims cannot buy an official Hajj package – which can cost 4000 dollars to $ 20,000 depending on their country of origin, the length of the stay and the level of comfort – and thus the Kingdom of the Gulf entered the visas of tourists or visitors.

Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam and occurs in the twelfth month of the Islamic lunar calendar.

It is the journey that every adult Muslim must do at least once in their lives if they can bear its costs and physically able.

On the first day of the Hajj, male pilgrims were asked to change their clothes for a white cloth and enter the state of Aram. Women wear modest clothes and cover their head, but not their face.

The pilgrims went to the Great Mosque of Makkah, sanctified the site of Islam, and they played the Kaaba three times – a ritual known as Tawaf. They can also walk seven times between a pure and Marwa hills, known as Say.

Then they traveled to Mina, 5 kilometers (3 miles), where they will spend the night in the city of Khaimah before they went on Thursday to Mount Arafat, where the Prophet Muhammad was said to have delivered his last sermon.

The Saudi Ministry of Health urged pilgrims to follow strict guidelines to alleviate the effects of heat, including avoiding exposure to the sun between 10:00 and 16:00, using umbrellas to shade itself, and drinking water regularly.

The shaded areas were expanded by 50,000 square meters (12 acres) and more than 400 cooling units were installed, according to the Minister of Hajj.

The cooling system in the Grand Mosque is the largest in the world, according to state television.

More rubber and cold methods have been built to reduce surface temperatures, artificial intelligence will be used to monitor a fleet of drones and help manage crowds.

In 2015, more than 2,300 people were said to have been killed in a stampede in Mina.