Six people have been confirmed dead while an unspecified number were injured or missing after a high rise building collapsed on Friday in the Egyptian capital of Cairo, safety authorities said.
The Cairo city deputy governor, Ibrahim Abdel-Hadi, in a statement released by the Interior Ministry, said rescuers at the scene had searched through the rubble and discovered the dead victims while the cause of the collapse was not immediately known.
Abdel-Hadi said one family of six was believed to have been inside the six-story building in the el-Waily neighborhood when it gave way in the early hours of the morning, adding that workers were continuing to search through in the rubble.
“People have been asked to leave the surrounding buildings because of structural concerns.
“Bulldozers and diggers were still lifting debris at the scene on Friday afternoon while a neighboring building had lost part of a wall, exposing the interior of an apartment,” the statement said.
Though building collapses are common in Egypt, where shoddy construction and lack of maintenance is widespread in shantytowns, poor city neighborhoods and rural areas, a local newspaper said while reporting the incident on Saturday.
“The government has tried to crack down on illegal building in recent years after decades of lax enforcement, but the megacity still contains entire neighborhoods of unlicensed red brick apartment buildings and shantytowns,” it said.
Six people have been confirmed dead while an unspecified number were injured or missing after a high rise building collapsed on Friday in the Egyptian capital of Cairo, safety authorities said.
The Cairo city deputy governor, Ibrahim Abdel-Hadi, in a statement released by the Interior Ministry, said rescuers at the scene had searched through the rubble and discovered the dead victims while the cause of the collapse was not immediately known.
Abdel-Hadi said one family of six was believed to have been inside the six-story building in the el-Waily neighborhood when it gave way in the early hours of the morning, adding that workers were continuing to search through in the rubble.
“People have been asked to leave the surrounding buildings because of structural concerns.
“Bulldozers and diggers were still lifting debris at the scene on Friday afternoon while a neighboring building had lost part of a wall, exposing the interior of an apartment,” the statement said.
Though building collapses are common in Egypt, where shoddy construction and lack of maintenance is widespread in shantytowns, poor city neighborhoods and rural areas, a local newspaper said while reporting the incident on Saturday.
“The government has tried to crack down on illegal building in recent years after decades of lax enforcement, but the megacity still contains entire neighborhoods of unlicensed red brick apartment buildings and shantytowns,” it said.