Jeddah flood toll rises to 83: reports

Some two million Muslim pilgrims descended from Mount Arafat, concluding the highlight of the hajj and beginning a slow trip back to Mecca to finish the annual pilgrimage.White-robed pilgrims began arriving in Muzdalifah, their first stop after leaving Mount Arafat and its plain, site of the Prophet Mohammed's last sermon.Many unauthorised pilgrims who had camped out on the pavements in the Arafat area trekked the few kilometres (miles) on foot and pitched their tents in Muzdalifah.

Ten Pakistani Muslim pilgrims were killed and 25 injured, including women and children, when their bus crashed north of the holy city of Mecca, Saudi media reported on Sunday.The bus carrying the pilgrims overturned on the highway between the holy cities of Mecca and Medina near Khulais, about 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of Jeddah, according to the reports.The group was on an umrah, or minor pilgrimage, to the holy cities.

Ten Pakistani Muslim pilgrims were killed and 25 injured, including women and children, when their bus crashed north of the holy city of Mecca, Saudi media reported on Sunday.The bus carrying the pilgrims overturned on the highway between the holy cities of Mecca and Medina near Khulais, about 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of Jeddah, according to the reports.The group was on an umrah, or minor pilgrimage, to the holy cities.

US President Barack Obama's Kenyan grandmother says she prayed during a hajj pilgrimage to Mecca for the American leader to convert to Islam, a newspaper revealed on Thursday."I prayed for my grandson Barack to convert to Islam," said Sarah Omar, 88, in an interview with Al-Watan Saudi daily held in Jeddah after she had performed hajj.The paper said that Omar was in Saudi Arabia on pilgrimage along with her son, Obama's uncle Saeed Hussein Obama, and four of her grandchildren.

Muslim pilgrims symbolically stoned the devil in the Mina valley, near Mecca, on Wednesday, as they launched into the final rituals of the hajj, the world's largest annual pilgrimage which this year has drawn around 2.8 million devotees.Having on Tuesday focused on throwing pebbles at the Jamarat al-Aqaba, the largest of three adjacent walls representing Satan, pilgrims on Wednesday cast their stones at all three sites.The stoning rituals continue on Thursday before the hajj winds up the following day.

Ten people were killed by flooding in Saudi Arabia's Red Sea port city of Jeddah and more deaths were feared, a civil defence official said after a massive downpour on Wednesday."I confirm that it's ten bodies but I can't say anything more for now," the official said, requesting anonymity.The storm struck the city in western Saudi Arabia in the morning, flooding streets. In one part of the city a bus could be seen submerged in several metres (feet) of water in an underpass.

Flooding caused by heavy downpours in western Saudi Arabia has killed 48 people while another 900 were rescued from swirling waters, the civil defence authority said on Thursday.A 90-millimetre (3.5-inch) downpour which hit the Red Sea city of Jeddah and its surroundings flooded the roads and tunnels and even brought down a few old houses, it said in a statement carried by SPA state news agency.The death toll in Jeddah reached 44, while four others died in the neighbouring province of Mecca, the authority said.

People at risk of suffering severe consequences from swine flu should postpone going to the hajj in 2009, according to a study released on Saturday.Some 2.5 million Muslims from more than 160 countries converge annually on the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina in western Saudi Arabia.The hajj pilgrimage -- to be completed at least once in a Muslim's lifetime, under the tenets of Islam -- can be undertaken at any time, but peaks this year from November 25 to 29, at the height of the alert over swine flu.