Rescuers sift through the rubble of a collapsed apartment building in the el-Salam neighborhood, in Cairo, Egypt Saturday, March 27, 2021. AP
A security source said that civil protection units managed to extract eight bodies, including two Sudanese citizens, bringing up the death toll from the 10-storey building that collapsed earlier on Saturday to 16 deaths.
A few hours earlier, Cairo governorate announced that the death toll of the collapsed building located in Cairo’s Gesr El-Suez district rose from eight deaths to nine.
Cairo governorate stated that civil protection units continue to remove the debris and search for other victims.
Earlier statements put the number of injured citizens in the building collapse at 24. Those injured were rushed to two hospitals in the capital.
The governorate said 18 injured citizens were allowed to leave the hospital after they received necessary medical treatment.
Meanwhile, the other six injured residents are still being treated at the hospital, they are however in a stable condition, the statement added.
The governorate said that it has formed a technical committee to inspect nearby buildings in order to determine if they were affected by the collapse.
Incidents of buildings collapsing are not uncommon in Egypt and are usually attributed to violations of building regulations, illegal building extensions and lax government oversight.
Local reports cited officials as saying that the Gesr El-Suez building had four unlicensed floors above the number of floors permitted for the building.
Egypt has asked citizens to reconcile with the state regarding their building violations through paying fines. The reconciliation requests are accepted in the case where the safety standards in a building are met.
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