CAIRO: Eight people were killed and three more injured when a six-story residential building collapsed in central Cairo on Tuesday, Egypt’s health ministry said.
Nine ambulances were dispatched to the scene as rescuers worked to “lift rubble and search for any wounded or bodies,” health ministry spokesman Hossam Abdel Ghaffar said in a statement.
“I woke up to a sound of a huge explosion,” Waleed Mohamed, 38, told AFP near the site of the rubble.
He said he and fellow neighbors ran “toward the building and saw it collapsed, the gas pipe exploded and everything was destroyed,” he said.
A restoration order had been issued in 1993 for the building, which was constructed in the 1960s in Cairo’s lower-middle income Al-Waili neighborhood, according to district head Ahmed Awad, state newspaper Al-Ahram reported.
But “the building’s residents had appealed the order and it was not executed,” the official said.
Neighbouring buildings were evacuated Tuesday as a precautionary measure, according to a statement from Cairo governorate.
A large number of the buildings in central Cairo have gone unrestored since they were built in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Greater Cairo — a sprawling metropolis home to over 26 million people — has seen a number of deadly building collapses in recent years, both due to the dilapidated state of some and, at times, failure to comply with building regulations.
Eight dead in Cairo building collapse: health ministry
https://arab.news/r6268
Eight dead in Cairo building collapse: health ministry
- The collapse of the six-story building in Cairo’s western neighborhood of Waili also injured three people
- The governor’s office said that prosecutors were investigating
Power supply across Kurdistan drops due to technical issue at Iraq’s Khor Mor gas field, ministry says
- A source at the field also said the technical glitch is under repair and expected to be resolved in a few hours
- The supply of 250 million standard cubic feet of gas has been reduced
BAGHDAD: Electricity supply across Kurdistan dropped by 1,000 megawatts due to a “teachnical issue” at Khor Mor gas field, one of the largest in the Kurdish region, the Kurdish ministry of electricity said on Thursday.
The Ministry of Natural Resources, together with the UAE’s Dana Gas teams, which jointly operate the field, are making efforts to address the problem and restore stability, the ministry of electricity said.
A source at the field also said the technical glitch is under repair and expected to be resolved in a few hours.
The ministry’s statement did not elaborate on what the technical issue was, but said the supply of 250 million standard cubic feet of gas has been reduced.
In November, a rocket hit a storage tank at the gas field, leading to a shutdown in production and extensive power cuts. Operations resumed days later.
The attack was the most significant since a series of drone attacks in July hit oilfields and cut production from the region by around 150,000 barrels per day.
The Kurdistan Regional Government exercises autonomy in northern Iraq, where US companies have significant investments in energy.
