The death toll from the collapse of a 12-storey residential building in Egypt's Mediterranean city of Alexandria rose to 10 on Tuesday after authorities dug five more bodies out of the ruins, security sources said.
Army rescue teams have joined efforts to search for survivors in the rubble, which is thought to have buried 25-30 people. Rescue workers have extracted at least two survivors from the rubble since the collapse, security sources said. State news agency MENA gave the figure as three.
The building disintegrated on Monday as construction workers carried out repairs on the first floor. It was constructed as a seven-storey building in 1982 without a permit, authorities said. The owner obtained a permit later but then illegally added five more storeys. A source on a panel of experts formed by the government to investigate the collapse said on Monday preliminary findings suggested the causes were shoddy building materials and insufficient use of steel reinforcement bars.
Prosecutors have issued warrants for the arrest of the woman who owned the building, as well as for the contractor and architect responsible for the renovation work that was being carried out immediately before the collapse.
State news agency MENA gave the owner's name as Hanem Mustafa, and said police believed she was currently in Kuwait. Building collapses are frequent in Egypt because of lax building standards and poor maintenance.
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