By Kenneth Changpertitum
Two children were killed in two separate incidences when buildings collapsed in the Sohag governorate on Monday, state-owned news agency Ahram Online reported.
The first incident occurred in Gerga, where a building suffering from decay collapsed, and the second occurred in Tama, where construction work on a neighbouring structure contributed to the home caving in.
Residential building collapse is a common phenomenon in Egypt. A survey between July 2012 and June 2013 conducted by the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) found 392 instances of building collapse that resulted in 192 fatalities and 824 families being made homeless.
The EIPR said in a statement last June that several factors cause such incidents; including old and decaying infrastructure, poor construction with little government oversight, and unauthorised development.
The statement continued: “The preliminary findings have shown that in-spite of a battery of laws that regulate, in much detail, construction and building maintenance, the lax enforcement of these laws by government authorities has led to the periodic occurrence of disastrous collapses.”
The majority of building collapses have occurred in Alexandria – a particularly tragic incident happened in July 2012, when an eight storey building collapsed, killing 20 people.
