|
Egypt block collapse toll at 8
25/12/2007 14:31 - (SA)
Alexandria - Rescue workers pulled three more bodies from the rubble of a collapsed block of flats in the Egyptian port city of Alexandria overnight, bringing the toll to eight dead with many still missing, a security source said on Tuesday.
Emergency services continued their search following Monday's collapse of the 12-storey building in the Loran district of the Mediterranean coastal city, the latest in a string of such disasters in recent years.
The dead include a four-year-old girl, while seven others were hospitalised with injuries and another 20 people were believed to be trapped under the rubble, the source said.
The building was home to between 40 and 50 people but the accident happened in the morning after many residents had left for work or school.
Local authorities had ordered the removal of the building's top two floors in 1995 because they contravened building laws but the order was not implemented.
Army equipment used to try and find dead, survivors
The area remained cordoned off on Tuesday, as anxious relatives clung on to hope that their loved ones would still be pulled alive from the devastated area in Alexandria, Egypt's second city and its main seaport with around four million inhabitants.
Rescue workers picked through the rubble, carefully heaving aside pieces of concrete and mangled steel among the satellite dishes usually found on Egyptian rooftops that had been brought tumbling down.
The official MENA news agency said army equipment was being used to try and find the dead and survivors.
A housing official was quoted by MENA as saying that the building was built without a construction permit 25 years ago.
Alexandria governor Adel Labib said some workers had been renovating the first floor when the building suddenly tilted to one side and then collapsed.
Labib ordered the two buildings on either side of the ruin to be evacuated after they also partially collapsed.
Prosecutor Abdel Meguid Mahmoud on Monday issued an arrest warrant for the building owners and for the estate agent in charge of restoration work as part of an investigation to determine the cause of the collapse.
The owners of the building had been ordered several times in the past and as late as 2002 to renovate the dilapidated building but work was repeatedly delayed due to "conflicts" with residents, the statement said.
|
News
