CAIRO: The Cairo governorate has denied a woman’s claim that a rockslide occurred in the Suzanne Mubarak housing project in Manshiyet Nasser near the site of the Duweiqa rockslide of Sept. 2008.
A woman in the fifth phase of the development contacted authorities and claimed that rocks had fallen and injured her. The local council countered her claim stating that she had made the complaint in an effort to be relocated and that she was injured during an altercation with a neighbor.
The Mubarak development was built to relocate residents of the shantytowns in Manshiyet Nasser to safer housing. It was funded by donations from the Gulf states.
More than 100 people died in the Sept. 6, 2008 rockslide in the shantytown of Duweiqa in Manshiyet Nasser when boulders estimated at 60 meters wide and 15 meters long and weighing 70 tons fell off Moqqatam hill onto 35 homes below in Izbet Bekhit.
The rescue effort was hindered by the layout of the area – a slum of narrow alleys and poorly constructed housing – which meant that rescue forces had to bulldoze through other houses to reach the disaster site.
The government was severely criticized for the inefficiency of the rescue effort, as bodies continued to be dug up days after the slide.
Amnesty International released a report Tuesday titled ‘Buried Alive; Trapped by Poverty and Neglect in Cairo’s Informal Settlements’ which criticized the government for its inability to protect the residents of Duweiqa from the 2008 rockslide, even though its incidence was predicted beforehand.
