- Title: EGYPT: RESCUE TEAMS PULL EIGHT BODIES FROM RUINS OF COLLAPSED BUILDING
- Date: 27th January 2004
- Summary: (W3) CAIRO, EGYPT (JANUARY 27, 2004) (REUTERS) 1. WIDE OF BULLDOZER AT SCENE/ RESCUE WORKERS IN BACKGROUND 0.05 2. SLV RESCUE WORKERS 0.01 3. SLV BULLDOZER/ RESCUE WORKERS 0.15 4. SLV RESCUE WORKING DIGGING IN RUBBLE 0.25 5. CLOSE OF CARPET AND CLOTHING HANGINING ON DEBRIS/ PULL OUT TO WIDE OF SCENE 0.39 6. VARIOUS O
- Embargoed: 11th February 2004 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: CAIRO, EGYPT
- Country: Egypt
- Reuters ID: LVA27JJY5E058TOSD97P1JNZMHKG
- Story Text: Rescue teams pull eight bodies from the ruins of a
high-rise building which collapsed in flames in Cairo and
are searching for at least six more people under the rubble,
The 11-storey building collapsed on Monday (January
26, 2004) after catching fire. Most of the dead and missing were
soldiers and rescue workers who had been evacuating the
building when it collapsed. Officials said the building's
residents had left before it fell.
A security sources said a total of six more soldiers
and rescue workers were still trapped under debris. But the
authorities could not be totally sure more civilians were
not trapped in the rubble in Cairo's commercial and
residential area of Nasr City.
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 casualties for
treatment. Rescue workers hammered at the wreckage with
pneumatic drills, working towards areas where they
suspected people could be trapped.
Crowds earlier cheered when they pulled one person
alive from under the ruins. Another two were later pulled
out, Cairo security director Nabil el-Azzaby said.
Ahmed Adel, undersecretary of health, said 42 people
had been injured in the incident.
Fireman Nasser Zakari said the building had collapsed
about one-and-a-half hours after a blaze broke out. 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 why it
collapsed.
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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