Egyptian residential block collapses leaving at least 23 dead

Flats in Alexandria crumble reviving allegations

of shoddy construction work and building violations in Egypt

[ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذه الصورة]


An eight-storey apartment block in Alexandria collapsed

on Wednesday, killing at least 23 people and injuring

11 in the second deadly accident to hit [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]

in two days, according to officials.

Mohammed el-Sharqawy, a health ministry official,

said rescue teams were searching for survivors

under the rubble. Military police from a naval base

cordoned off the area to help the rescue work.

The building collapse came a day after 19 police conscripts

were killed just outside Cairo when their train carriage

jumped the tracks and smashed into another train.

It was not immediately clear what caused

the building collapse. The block was in a poor district of Alexandria.

Violations of building specifications have been blamed

for similar accidents in the past.

Mohammed Abbas Atta, the governor of Alexandria,

told Egypt's official news agency that the building

had been constructed without a permit.

Abul-Ezz el-Hariri, an opposition politician from Alexandria,

warned that hundreds of buildings in the city faced

a similar ending, but that lax law enforcement following

the ousting two years ago of Egypt's president, [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]

, meant that no action was being taken against building violations.

Residents complain that landowners in farmland

on the city's outskirts took advantage of the chaos

and near lawlessness that followed the former president's

overthrow and illegally sold plots to developers

who then built shoddy apartment blocks.

Similar violations have taken place across much of the country

. Pointing to the magnitude of the problem,

the housing minister, Tareq Wafeeqm, told reporters

that 318,000 illegal constructions had been erected

in 23 of Egypt's 27 provinces between 2009 and 2012.

Alexandria's security chief, Major General Abdel-Mawgood Lutfi,

said that the building that collapsed had been put up

five years ago and that it had 24 apartments.

As it had fallen early in the day most of the tenants

had been inside. Police evacuated residents of

two adjacent buildings for fear of structural damage.

The collapse could stoke criticism of the [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]

administration. Critics accuse the government of failing

to carry out reforms and overhaul the nation's

deteriorating public services.


Two months ago, 50 children died when a train rammed

into their school bus in southern Egypt. That tragedy

also sparked a storm of criticism of Morsi,

who took office in June.

The latest train wreck led to protests on Tuesday

at railway stations in Cairo, Alexandria and a third city

in the Nile delta. The demonstrators were protesting

at what they said was official negligence in maintaining

and upgrading the country's aging rail network.

Morsi's government blamed Tuesday's train accident

on allegedly 30 years of corruption and misrule under Mubarak.

The transport minister, Hatem Abdel-Lateef,

told another news conference that overhauling

the country's railways would cost $2.3bn, a hefty sum

for a nation reeling from two years

of political and economic turmoil.

On Wednesday Morsi's administration sought to defuse

the mounting criticism, declaring solidarity with the victims

of the train wreck and the building collapse.

A spokesman, Yasser Ali, said the presidency offered

its condolences to the victims' families and pledged to ensure

that they and the survivors received the best available care.

Morsi, the nation's first democratically elected president,

has struggled since taking office in June to address a host of

problems including the ailing economy, tenuous security,

a slumping tourism industry,

and seemingly endless political turmoil.