(Photo by Ahmed Arab )
By Aurora Ellis
Two people died in a residential building collapse in the coastal city of Alexandria on Sunday, reported state-owned Al-Ahram.
Retired military general Mostafa Abdel Hamid, 65, and his wife Amaal Gadallah, 55, died in their home after the couple refused a request by authorities to leave the seven-story residential building because they had no other place to live, according Al-Ahram.
In a video posted online, Alexandrian governor Tarek Al-Mahdy is shown in front of the remains of the collapsed building with rescue teams as they searched for victims and salvaged items from the rubble.
According to Al-Ahram, Mahdy claims that the collapse was due to faulty infrastructure built under a “period of lawlessness” and he claims that “a catastrophe like this will repeat in the future.”
This collapse comes after a series of deadly building collapses in Alexandria earlier this year, including a collapse in January that killed at least 24 people and injured eight in the Ma’amora district.
Activists and rights groups frequently blame the rampant violations of building codes, corruption, and unauthorised developers as the main causes of recurrent building collapses throughout Egypt.
