Rescue teams continued combing through rubble after a multistory apartment building collapsed Sunday in Tripoli, northern Lebanon, a disaster that state media said had already killed at least nine people and saved six others. State-run reporting described residents gathering around the crater left by the collapse as the search carried on for more people believed to be trapped.
Lebanon’s National News Agency said rescue workers were continuing to dig through the wreckage in search of an additional eight people who were believed to be missing. The bodies pulled out so far included a child and a woman, state media reported, as crews worked amid a crowd at the site.
The building was located in the neighborhood of Bab Tabbaneh, described by AP as among the poorest areas of Lebanon’s second-largest city. Residents there have long complained of government neglect and of shoddy infrastructure, and AP said that building collapses are not uncommon in Tripoli, in part because of poor building standards.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said those injured in the collapse would receive treatment at the state’s expense. Government officials also pledged to assist in providing shelter not only for survivors but for residents of nearby buildings who were evacuated out of fear that their structures might also be unsafe.
Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said in a statement that the government would work to reinforce any buildings deemed to be at risk of collapsing. Salam said determining where such buildings are is the responsibility of local authorities, and he added that the government “will not shirk our responsibility” and would hold accountable anyone who may have been negligent in the incident.
In parallel with the government response, the national syndicate for property owners issued a statement criticizing the collapse as part of a broader pattern rather than an isolated incident. The syndicate described the collapse as resulting from “blatant negligence and shortcomings of the Lebanese state toward the safety of citizens and their housing security” and called for the government to launch a comprehensive national survey of buildings at risk of collapse.