Civil protection forces searched for trapped victims on Monday underneath the rubble of a collapsed 13-story building in northern Egypt. The Egyptian Public Prosecution Office has ordered an investigation into the incident which took place in the Sidi Beshr area of Alexandria.
At least four people were taken to nearby hospitals with injuries. Maj. Gen. Mohamed Al-Sharif, the governor of Alexandria, said the building on Khalil Hamada Street had a vertical split.
Eyewitnesses said a number of cars that were beneath the building at the time were destroyed in the incident.
The building collapsed as a number of residents watched. There were also people present at a supermarket below the building.
The collapse caused a fire to break out amid the rubble, and civil protection forces immediately intervened to extinguish it.
The number of people trapped under the rubble is not yet known but authorities have put a security cordon around the site.
Gas, electricity, and other services were shut down in neighboring buildings. The governor said that the building was being used as apartments for rent during the summer season.
Khaled Abdel-Ghaffar, Egyptian minister of health and population, ordered the state of readiness at hospitals in the Alexandria Governorate to rise in order to receive anyone injured in the incident.
The ministry added that it had dispatched 12 ambulances to the accident site. Alexandria, a coastal city overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, attracts millions of Egyptians, Arabs, and foreign tourists.
Three passers-by were injured earlier this month when two balconies of an old building in eastern Alexandria collapsed.
A five-story building collapsed in Egypt’s capital Cairo in June 2022, causing the partial collapse of two others.
It has been reported that many areas of Alexandria Governorate are blighted with dilapidated buildings. A figure of more than 7,000 such buildings has been quoted.—AFP
