The deaths of 76 people in a Muslim pilgrims' hostel in Makkah before the annual Haj elicited a rare flurry of media criticism of Saudi authorities on Saturday.
"Yet another building has collapsed, and with each one the bad management, bad supervision, and nonchalance of the concerned authorities are revealed," columnist Abdul-Rahman Al-Rashed wrote in the main Saudi daily Ashraq al-Awsat.
Deadly stampedes, attacks by Islamist militants or the possibility that a dangerous virus could spread through the crowds like wildfire have been the main worries of Saudi organisers of this year's pilgrimage.
So the collapse of the hostel, which was only 30 years old, during the mid-day bustle of a narrow market street on Thursday in the Muslim holy city of Mecca took authorities by surprise.
The accident occurred as hundreds of thousands of pilgrims crammed into the mountain city where Islam was born for Sunday's start of the five-day Haj.
The collapse was embarrassing for Saudi Arabia, whose reputation among Islamic countries rests to a large extent on its ability to host 2.5 million Haj pilgrims annually.
Officials initially put the number of dead at 15, but as rescue workers cleared the rubble on Friday the figure shot up.
An Interior Ministry official, who said it was still not clear what caused the collapse, told angry journalists the hostel had been licensed by the Industry and Trade Ministry.
"The state is pumping millions into the Haj and honest businessmen are sticking to rules, but some who look for quick gain embarrass the country before the international community," wrote Abdel-Aziz Al-Jarallah in the daily al-Riyadh.
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