Child among dead of Egypt's Alexandria building collapse, 5 missing under rubble

Rescuers have extracted the bodies of three victims, including a 13-year-old boy and a 22-year-old Sudanese national, from under the rubble of a 14-storey building that collapsed in Egypt's Mediterranean city of Alexandria a day ago.

Six others were wounded, four of whom have since received treatment and were discharged from the hospital, while two others sustained critical injuries, according to the health ministry.  

Five people have been reported missing by their next of kin after they were notified about the incident that occurred on Monday morning. 

"Preliminary investigations indicated that the collapse resulted from a 'vertical split' in the structure of the building due to illegal construction work on the fourteenth floor, which had earlier received a demolition order by the local municipality," Alexandria governor Mohamed Taher El-Sherif told reporters on the scene.

The authorities apprehended the contractor in the early hours of Tuesday, while the prosecutor-general opened an immediate investigation into the incident. The owner of the illegal floor, who had hired the contractor, was also detained.

"The local prosecutor ordered both men to be remanded in custody initially for four days, to be renewed, pending further investigations into the charges against them, which involved 'involuntary manslaughter and the infliction of physical injury'," an official source inside the general prosecutor's office in the capital Cairo told The New Arab.

Meanwhile, search and rescue operations have been underway for other unreported survivors who may have been living in the building during the collapse and had gone missing in the process.

Local TV stations reported that about 16 flats host residents inside the collapsed building, and an unspecified number of units are mainly rented by holidaymakers, especially during the Eid al-Adha season that kicked off on Tuesday.

Alexandria is known for being a preferred holiday destination for Egyptians during summer.

Alexandria, Egypt's second-largest city, accounted for more than half of building collapses in Egypt in recent years.

This year alone witnessed 22 incidents in Alexandria, killing at least 12 people, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, the sister company of TNA, reported.