Death toll of Egypt's Alexandria building collapse rises to 10 as search and rescue continues

Until Wednesday morning, rescue workers have removed the bodies of 10 victims from under the rubble of a 14-storey building that collapsed in Egypt's Mediterranean city of Alexandria two days earlier.

Six others were wounded, including a paramedic, some of whom have since received treatment and were discharged from the hospital as others remain critical, a health ministry official told The New Arab.  

Alexandria governor Mohamed Taher El-Sherif told reporters on the scene following the incident that preliminary investigations indicated that the collapse resulted from a "vertical split" in the structure of the building, located on the busy Khalil Hamada Street in Montazah neighbourhood, as a result of "illegal construction work" on the fourteenth floor.

The floor had earlier received a demolition order from the local municipality but was reportedly ignored by the owner and the contractor, local news outlets reported.

On Tuesday, the owner of the floor in question and the contractor who supervised the construction work were arrested and ordered by the local prosecutor to be remanded in custody for four days, to be renewed, pending further investigations into the charges against them.

Both men have been facing the changes of "involuntary manslaughter and the infliction of physical injury."

Meanwhile, search and rescue operations have been underway on the scene currently cordoned off by the security forces, as nearby hospitals have been placed on a state of high alert in case any possible survivors are found under the debris.



About 16 flats hosted residents inside the collapsed building, and an unspecified number of units were mainly rented by holidaymakers, especially during the Eid al-Adha season that kicked off on Tuesday.

Alexandria, Egypt's second-largest city, is known for being a preferred holiday destination for Egyptians during summer.

The coastal 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 22 people, according to a report by Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, the sister company of The New Arab.