Mecca fire of 1997 Mecca fire of 1997 The Mecca fire of 1997 was a fire that occurred in the tent city near Mecca in Saudi Arabia 15 April 1997, killing between 217 and 300 people. The fire erupted in the overcrowded tent city, Mina, where an estimated two million Muslim pilgrims were gathered on for the first day of the Hajj, the ritualistic pilgrimage to Mecca. The fire erupted at 11:45 a.m. (), and was caused by exploding canisters of cooking gas, according to witnesses. The fire was fanned by winds of nearly causing the destruction of an estimated 70,000 tents. Officially, 1,290
Black mecca Memphis, Durham, Philadelphia, Houston and New Orleans, as well as New York (as a whole, i.e. not just Harlem), Baltimore, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Oakland, Miami, Charlotte, Cleveland, Dallas, and Joliet, Illinois. In the 1850's, the city of Chatham, Ontario was referred to as the "Black Mecca of Canada", as a final stop on the Underground Railroad. A museum in the city, the Black Mecca Museum, still bares this name. The small city was home to a number of black churches and business, with Black Canadians making up 1/3 of the city's population and controlling a significant portion of