A five-story building in Egypt’s capital Cairo collapsed in the early hours of Friday killing at least six people, Al Arabiya’s correspondent reported.
The incident also resulted in the partial collapse of two adjacent buildings.
Both affected buildings have been evacuated as engineering teams asses them to determine whether it’s safe for the tenants to return to their homes.
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Cairo’s governor visited the scene to inspect the rescue operations and supervise the security forces’ work to pull out the victims’ bodies from under the rubble.
Residents in the neighborhood said the building collapse felt like an earthquake, news website Gate Ahram reported.
According to the residents, four families lived in the building.
Gate Ahram also quoted a resident as saying that a decision to restore the building had been previously issued but never implemented.
Egypt has suffered several deadly building collapses due to the dilapidation of buildings and the failure of carrying out necessary repairs.
According to a report published in 2021 by Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ), building collapses across Egypt killed 500 people in the past seven years.
The report also said that according to the Egyptian Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, there are around 100,000 residential properties in the country that are categorized as irreparable and “dangerous” and that must be demolished.
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