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Amman building collapses, killing five and injuring 14 others, Jordan
A four-storey residential building in Jordan’s capital, Amman, has collapsed, killing five people and injuring 14 others on Tuesday, 13 September 2022. The toll from the collapse in the city’s Jabal al-Weibdeh district “has risen to five dead and 14 injured”, security spokesman Amer al-Sartawi said in a statement. A source at the civil defence service said there remained “a number of people trapped in the collapsed building”, without providing an exact figure.
Rescue teams have saved a victim in their 50s who was trapped under the rubble of a collapsed building for more than 20 hours in the capital Amman, police said on Wednesday. It was not made clear whether the person rescued was a man or woman. The victim was the eighth person to be recovered from the ruins. Several survivors are still believed to be stuck under the rubble while a major search and rescue operation continues. An eyewitness told AFP that rescue workers, some digging by hand, had been able to communicate with at least three trapped people. Government spokesman Faisal Shboul told the al-Mamlaka state television channel that ten people, several of whom were still alive, were believed to be trapped in the debris. Hatem Jaber, head of the Civil Defence service, said Wednesday that “more than 300 Civil Defence personnel have taken part in the search for those trapped under the rubble.” Rescue teams “will not rest” until all have been accounted for, he said. A baby girl, Malak, aged only five months, who was extracted from the wreckage on Wednesday and taken to Luzmilla, a private hospital near the collapsed building in the middle-class neighbourhood of Al Weibdeh. “Malak has been removed from intensive care, her condition is wonderful,” the doctor treating her told The National. Malak and her family did not live in the building. Her mother told state TV that she had left Malak with a 23-year old female friend who lives in an apartment on the ground floor of the collapsed building. It was not immediately clear what brought down the building, which state media said was an older structure. When asked about what had caused the collapse, Faisal Shuboul, Jordan’s minister of state for media affairs, said, “We do not know, it is an old building and a search is ongoing to find out the reason behind it. The prime minister asked the mayor of Amman and officials to find out the reason behind the collapse of the building.” Prime Minister Bisher al-Khasawneh directed authorities to investigate the cause of the collapse. Three people have subsequently been arrested in connection with a continuing investigation into the collapse, authorities said. They said they were heirs to the building's owner, who died years ago. Two of the men were identified as a contractor and a technician. Neighbours said the building collapsed while expansion work involving the removal of a wall was being carried out in an apartment on the ground floor. Two state engineers, who were part of a team visiting the site on Wednesday, said on condition of anonymity that the sandwich-like way the building fell was consistent with a retaining wall removal. They stressed, however, that the official investigation had only started. Source: Al Jazeera, AFP, MSN |
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