Cairo building collapse leaves 25 dead

A 10-story building collapsed in Cairo, Egypt on March 27th, resulting in the death of at least 25 people.

The building failure occurred at the el-Salam neighborhood of Cairo, during the early hours of Saturday March 27th, when several residents were asleep. Immediately after the incident, locals and witnesses indicated to local authorities and news agencies that many people were still trapped under the rubbles.  Rescue teams were promptly dispatched to the area searching for any survivors through cement and rubble.

“The governorate’s crisis room was informed at 3:00am (01:00 GMT) of the collapse of a building consisting of a basement, a ground floor and nine (upper) floors,” the Cairo Governor said in a statement. According to the Al-Ahram newspaper, as of Sunday March 28th, the number of injured residents has risen to 75, with several of them taken to hospitals.

Such failures of buildings and structures are not a-typical across Egypt and particular in the populous cities of Cairo and Alexandria. To investigate the incident and assess the structural integrity of nearby buildings, an engineering committee was created according to Khalid Abdel-Al, the administrative head of Cairo governorate.

A hint on the causes of the collapse was provided by the Al-Ahram newspaper, which quoted local reports claiming four of the building's floors had been added illegally. Fueled by the increase in real estate demand, particularly in densely populated cities, often construction developers violate building permits by adding floors to structures that are not designed accordingly in order to maximize their profits.

To address this issue, the Egyptian government has recently launched a crackdown on illegal building across the country.