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Sunday 12 Jul 2015 - 21:25 Makkah mean time-25-9-1436
 Makkah (IINA) - Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman launched on Saturday night five giant projects that are implemented as part of the third Saudi expansion of the Grand Mosque.
The expansion projects include the King Abdullah Expansion Structure, courtyards, tunnels, buildings for service facilities and the first ring road. The king was briefed on the model of the entire expansion project, which is tipped to be “the Project of the Century.” With the completion of the ongoing largest ever expansion by the next Ramadan, the Grand Mosque would accommodate a total of 1.85 million worshippers
The total area of the expanded structure is 1,470,000 square meters with 78 automatic gates on the ground floor surrounding the building. Minister of Finance Dr. Ibrahim Al-Assaf said that the newly opened King Abdullah Expansion Structure consists of six floors for worshippers. The expanded structure has 680 escalators, 24 lifts for people with special needs, and 21,000 toilets and ablution areas. He said that the Third Saudi Expansion came as an extension of the previous historic expansions, started by King Abdulaziz, and followed by his sons –Saud, Faisal, Khaled and Fahd, until the current expansion ordered by the late King Abdullah.
The expansion project consisted of three parts: construction of new building; expansion and development of courtyards around the mosque, including walkways, tunnels and toilets; and development of service facilities for air-conditioning, electricity and drinking water. The Ministry of Finance is supervising the expansion project, which is being implemented by the Saudi Binladin Group.
King Abdullah laid the foundation stone for the expansion of the Grand Mosque at a ceremony held in Makkah on 19 Aug. 2011. The King Abdullah Expansion Project is estimated to cost over SR 100 billion. The total area of the existing mosque is 356,000 sq. meters accommodating 770,000 worshippers while the new expansion covering an area of 456,000 sq. meters will accommodate an additional 1.2 million faithful.
HA/IINA
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