(Amman) Jordanian rescue services are engaged in a race against time on Wednesday to try to extract ten people trapped under the rubble of a four-story building that collapsed the day before in Amman.
Posted at 10:16 a.m.
“According to our information, ten people are still under the rubble of the collapsed building, some of them are still alive,” government spokesman Faisal Chboul told the official Al Mamlaka television channel.
“Search operations are continuing at the site, the terrain is rugged, the buildings are close to each other and the corridors are narrow, which makes searches difficult,” said the official.
More than 300 civil defense cadres are taking part in the search, civil defense director Hatem Jaber also told Al Mamlaka.
According to a latest report established Tuesday evening by the authorities, five people died and 14 were injured in the collapse of this residential building in Jabal Al-Weibdeh, in the center of the Jordanian capital. Such accidents are very rare in Jordan.
The collapse would be due in particular to the fact that the building is “old and dilapidated”, said Tuesday the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Local Administration, Taoufik Krichane, on the Al-Mamlaka channel.
Jabal al-Weibdeh is one of Amman’s oldest bohemian neighborhoods, popular especially among expats and known for its vibrant cultural life.
The site of the collapse was cordoned off on Wednesday morning and the police prevented the inhabitants of the district from approaching so as not to hinder the search operations, noted an AFP correspondent.
Due to the narrowness of the streets, heavy vehicles could not access the site and the clearing is done manually under the anxious gaze of the relatives of the buried persons.
According to a witness who did not wish to be identified, the rescuers were able to establish contact with at least three of the people trapped, including a man and a woman.
A judicial source told AFP on Tuesday that “the prosecution had opened an investigation into the collapse of the building”.