CAIRO: Three were killed and five injured when a rundown building in Giza partially collapsed Wednesday morning.
The collapse was attributed to the dilapidated state of the building, one of a line of shabbily built constructions off El-Bahr El-A’zam street in Giza.
The incident claimed the lives of a 32-year-old woman and her six-year-old daughter as well as an elderly female resident. The father was also injured in the collapse.
An official told AFP that there were no residents trapped under the rubble.
It wasn’t a total collapse of the building, rather the back half had slid down leaving the remainder of the building upright.
Construction Engineer Samir Moghazy attributes this type of collapse to the probability that the structure was built using bearing blocks rather than concrete columns through the middle of the building. The bearing blocks for the back half of the building collapsed causing the structural damage to the specific part it holds up.
Another reason, according to Moghazy, could be the type of ground the structure was built on. “The ground could be clay, and if water seeps through then it will weaken the foundations.
If the ground absorbs enough water, whether through sewage or the building’s proximity to the Nile, the structural foundations could sink lower to the ground and that would also lead to a partial collapse.
Moghazy added that the rest of the building was now in danger of collapse.
In early October, a building collapsed in Alexandria causing the death of 12 people.
Many buildings in Egypt have not been built according to regulations, with contractors’ greed leading to the addition of extra floors, which the building’s foundations cannot hold up.
Additionally, in extremely rundown areas, the buildings are usually brick shacks shoddily assembled into makeshift homes without the requisite foundations.
