10-storey Building Collapses in Iran
Ten people have been killed and dozens injured after an unfinished building collapsed in south-west Iran, the Iranian Red Crescent said.
“Rescue teams worked through the night to pull out the dozens still trapped” in the 10-storey Metropol office block in Abadan, state media reported.
Pictures showed that concrete floors and steel beams had fallen on to the street below, crushing several cars.
Officials said the cause of the collapse was being investigated.
Those who were trapped in the building for hours have since been rescued and taken to hospital, a regional governor told Iranian state news agency Irna.
Local prosecutor Hamid Maranipour said “both the Metropol’s owner and the building contractor had been arrested.”
Irna reported that the building was located on Abadan’s busiest commercial street, and that its lower floors had been open for a few days while construction work continued above.
Witnesses said the collapse, which happened at around 12:40 local time (08:10 GMT), was sudden.
“I thought it was an earthquake at first,” Ahmad, a shop owner, told the Associated Press.
The Iranian Red Crescent said 23 rescue teams from Abadan and neighbouring cities rushed to the scene along with more than a dozen ambulances.
It initially feared that at least 80 people were trapped in the rubble, but after several hours rescuers lowered the missing to “tens” of people.
The Mehr news agency said “most of those who were trapped had been shopping on the ground floor of one of the finished parts of the building.”
Later on Monday afternoon, angry residents took to the streets to protest against the actions of local authorities. A video showed them shouting: “Today is a day of mourning for poor Abadan.”
In another video, a crowd appeared to run after the city’s mayor, Hossein Hamidpour, near the scene of the collapse.
In 2017, at least 20 people were killed, including 16 firefighters, when the 17-storey Plasco building in Tehran caught fire and then collapsed.
BBC /Shakirat Sadiq
