- Title: EGYPT: SURVIVORS PULLED FROM WRECKAGE OF COLLAPSED CAIRO BUILDING
- Date: 26th January 2004
- Summary: (W8) CAIRO, EGYPT (JANUARY 26, 2004) (REUTERS) (NIGHT SCENES) 1. WIDE OF COLLAPSED BUILDING 0.03 2. SLV EMERGENCY WORKERS LOOKING AT BUILDING 0.07 3. SLV FIREMEN WORKING 0.13 4. PAN OF MORE EMERGENCY WORKERS/ FIREMEN ARRIVING 0.19 5. SLV FIREMEN MOVING AWAY PILE OF RUBBLE 0.25 6. VARIOUS OF FIREFIGHTERS DR
- Embargoed: 10th February 2004 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: CAIRO, EGYPT
- Country: Egypt
- Reuters ID: LVA8HVT0RUUR2F8UAZOFUG3U9VM8
- Story Text: Survivors pulled from rubble after several-story
residential building collapses in Cairo.
Rescue teams worked on Tuesday (January 27) to free
12 people trapped under the rubble of a high-rise building
which collapsed in Cairo after catching fire, killing one
and injuring more than 40, officials said.
Onlookers cheered as one man was helped by rescuers to
an ambulance. An older man who was pulled from the debris
was kissed by a fireman.
Cairo security director Nabil el-Azzaby told Reuters
the incident had killed one soldier. A further seven
soldiers, who had been helping to evacuate the 11-storey
building, were still trapped along with four rescue workers
and a civilian, he said.
Police cordoned off the area around the pile of rubble
where the building had stood.
A bulldozer slowly cleared slabs of concrete from part
of the site and ambulances waited to take the injured for
treatment. Rescue workers hammered at the wreckage with
pneumatic drills, working towards areas where they suspect
people could be trapped.
Ahmed Adel, undersecretary of health, told Reuters 42
people had been injured in the incident in Cairo's
residential and commercial area of Nasr City.
Fireman Nasser Zakari said the building had collapsed
about one-and-a-half hours after the blaze started. He said
the fire began in a plastics storeroom in the building's
lower floors.
Cairo Governor Abdel Raheem Shehata told Egypt's
official Middle East News Agency (MENA) an order for the
two-decade-old building's demolition had been issued in
1992. Planning permission had only been granted for four of
its levels. A further seven had been added illegally, he
said.
MENA quoted Egyptian Housing Minister Mohamed Ibrahim
Soleiman as saying it was too early to say what had the
caused its collapse.
The collapse of apartment blocks is not uncommon in
Egypt, where building regulations are sometimes ignored and
residents often add unauthorised floors to existing
structures, endangering their stability.
Seven people died last May when a six-storey apartment
building collapsed in the Egyptian capital.
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