CAIRO (AP) - An eight-story apartment building collapsed Wednesday in
the Egyptian city of Alexandria, killing at least 22 people in the
second deadly accident to hit the country in as many days.
The
MENA state news agency said 11 people were also injured and that rescue
teams were searching for survivors under the rubble. Military police
from a nearby naval base had cordoned off the area to help the rescue
operation. The collapse came a day after 19 police conscripts were
killed when the last car of the train they were riding in jumped the
tracks and smashed into another train just outside Cairo.
It was
not immediately clear what caused the building to collapse in a poor
district of the Mediterranean port city, but violations of building
specifications have been blamed for similar accidents in the past. The
governor of Alexandria, Mohammed Abbas Atta, told Egypt's official news
agency that the building was constructed without a permit.
Abul
Ezz el-Hariri, an opposition lawmaker from Alexandria, warned that
hundreds of buildings in the city face the same fate, but that lax law
enforcement following the ouster two years ago of Egyptian leader Hosni
Mubarak means that no action is being taken against building violations.
Residents
complain that landowners in farmland on the city's outskirts have taken
advantage of the chaos and near lawlessness that followed the former
president's overthrow and illegally sold their land to developers who
built shoddy apartment blocks.
Similar violations have taken place
across much of the country. Pointing to the magnitude of the problem,
Housing Minister Tareq Wafeeq told reporters that a total of 318,000
illegal constructions went up in 23 of Egypt's 27 provinces between 2009
and 2012.
Alexandria's security chief, police Maj-Gen
Abdel-Mawgood Lutfi, said the building was constructed five years ago
and had 24 apartments.
That the building collapsed early in the
day meant that most tenants were home. Police evacuated residents of two
adjacent buildings out of concern that the collapse may have caused
structural damage to them.
The collapse could stoke criticism of
President Mohammed Morsi 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 Tuesday at railway stations in
Cairo, Alexandria and a third city in the Nile Delta. The demonstrators
were protesting what they said was official negligence in maintaining
and upgrading the country's aging rail network.
Morsi's government
has blamed Tuesday's train accident on what officials say is nearly 30
years of corruption and misrule under Mubarak. Transport Minister Hatem
Abdel-Lateef told another news conference that overhauling the country's
railways would cost 15 billion Egyptian pounds ($2.3 billion), a hefty
sum for nation reeling from two years of political and economic turmoil.
The
news conferences by the two Cabinet ministers appeared to be an effort
by Morsi's government to take the initiative in the face of scathing
criticism from the independent media and opposition parties.
Morsi,
the nation's first democratically elected president, has struggled
since taking office in June to address a host of major problems that
include an ailing economy, tenuous security, a slumping tourism industry
and seemingly endless political turmoil.
When News Breaks Out, We Break In. Minute by Minute Report on Cameroon and Africa
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