New numbers on last month’s deadly stampede near Mecca have revealed that the casualties, which were put at 769 by the Saudi government, are actually closer to 1,470.

According to the Associated Press, the new death toll makes the stampede on Sept. 24 the deadliest recorded Hajj-related disaster in history. In 1990, a stampede at the Hajj resulted in 1,426 deaths.

The Hajj, an annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca which is a mandatory religious duty for Muslims, draws in 2 million pilgrims each year. New Yorker reported a Saudi Arabian Minister of Hajj has likened the annual observance to “twenty Super Bowls in one stadium, when two million will come, and ... these two million people will actually be taking part in playing the game.”

September was a particularly tragic time for Islamic pilgrims in Mecca. As previously reported, on Sept. 11 a crane belonging to the Saudi Binladen Group collapsed at Mecca's Grand Mosque, killing 111 people and injuring nearly 400 worshippers.

According to Atlantic, human stampedes are common enough around the globe that they actually have their own body of academic research within the larger category of crowd behavior studies. A 2010 study conducted by Edbert Hsu of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine informs that, worldwide, 215 human stampedes took place between 1980 and 2007. Those stampedes resulted in over 7,000 deaths and 14,000 injuries.

Regarding the latest stampede in Mecca, Iran has placed the blame for the stampede on Saudi’s "mismanagement" of the compulsory pilgrimage.

The Islamic Republic has suggested that an independent body should take over the Hajj.

Hani Sabra, the head of the Middle East practice at the Eurasia Group, says that, despite the casualties, this will never happen. "The Saudis are not for a nanosecond going to entertain any proposals to share management of the hajj with other states," Sabra said.