A 12-story building collapsed Monday in Egypt's port city of Alexandria, killing at least five people, a police official and witnesses said. According to the AP, an old woman was pulled out alive from under the debris.
The official said residents were trapped under the piles of bricks and concrete slabs of the building in the eastern Al-Raml district of the city. Police could not immediately explain the reasons for the fall of the building, said to have been constructed in 1978. The police official said the building originally had seven stories but that the five additional ones were built in recent years.
Building collapses are a frequent occurrence in Egypt. Many of them are unauthorised and not built according to regulations or with poor materials.
