Mohamed El-Sayed discovers hopes crushed alongside families and homes Tamer Farag, a resident of the slum area of Ezbet Bekheit in the shantytown of Dweiqa in eastern Cairo, became a father a couple of weeks ago. To celebrate the birth of the baby, 17 of his relatives came to Cairo from Fayoum. While the entire household was still asleep, eight huge boulders broke off the Moqattam hills and flattened Farag's house alongside 50 others. The bodies of Farag, his new baby, and nine members of his family including his wife have since been recovered. The rest lie trapped beneath the rubble. Saturday's disaster has so far claimed 57 lives and left 58 injured. Tens of people remain trapped beneath the debris and five days into rescue operations hopes are fading that anyone will be found alive. Rescue teams were slow arriving at the scene of the tragedy, say residents, who were left scrambling in the rubble with their hands searching for survivors. "We had to start rescuing our neighbours until the teams came," one resident said. Others, like Elia Youssef, complained that, "we waited for an ambulance for a long time while our children were dying... I took a taxi to get my daughter to the Al-Hussein Hospital. Alas, she departed this life when I reached there." Civil Defence rescuers initially had no tools to move the rubble, though they used sniffer dogs in a desperate bid to find victims. Eventually they were supplemented by army units but the jackhammers they brought could not break up the enormous boulders. Then came the Arab Contractors, bringing heavy machinery capable of lifting the rocks, though they first had to cut a railway line in order to gain access to the site. Residents of Ezbet Bekheit were in a state of shock and disbelief and emotions ran high each time a body was brought from beneath the rubble. The relatives of the victims hurled insults, and sometimes stones, at the authorities, accusing officials of being slow to come to their aid. "They couldn't save the Shura Council from fire. How do they think they can rescue people here?" asked one resident. To avoid hampering rescue operations and for fear more rocks might slide down the face of the cliff 100 families were evacuated to a tented camp in nearby Al-Fustat district, while others were taken to another tented camp in Manshiet Nasser. Some residents, though, resisted the move. Reporters have been barred from speaking to survivors in the camp. Meanwhile, President Hosni Mubarak has ordered the government to provide housing for those left homeless and compensation to families of the victims. "The family of the deceased will receive LE5,000 and those of anyone injured will be given LE1,000," said Minister of Social Solidarity Ali Meselhi. Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif announced that "there would be a full review of housing settlements built throughout the country without construction permits," while Minister of Housing Ahmed El-Maghrabi said a group of consultants would be commissioned to study the area and identify houses most at risk from further landslides. The cause of the rockfall remains unclear. Investigations are continuing though initial reports suggest building work on the edge of the Moqattam hills might be to blame. Geologists have also pointed out that waste water leaking from residential developments at the top of the hills could have caused the limestone to fragment. "The Moqattam hills are comprised mostly of limestone and shale," geologist Yehia El-Qazzaz told Al-Ahram Weekly. "In recent years rockslides began to hit the area as urban developments mushroomed on the hills and wastewater permeated fissures in the rocks and caused the shale layers to expand." In 2003, the Ministry of Housing launched a well- publicised campaign, under the auspices of Mrs Suzanne Mubarak, to provide housing units for some of Cairo's poorest residents, including those in the affected area. So why haven't they been re-housed? Claims and counterclaims abound. "Demolition warrants were issued on houses in these slum areas and their inhabitants offered alternative houses in Al-Nahda district," says Governor of Cairo Abdel-Azim Wazir. "Some people moved while others resisted and refused to leave their houses." Residents, however, tell another story. "We don't trust the government to eventually re-house us. We can take the risk of living in the shadow of a cliff but we cannot risk becoming homeless," says Ahmed Mohamed. Others argue that the prices of the flats to which the authorities want to relocate them are beyond their reach. Haidar Baghdadi, NDP MP for the afflicted area, blames the disaster on the Ministry of Housing. "The ministry failed to re-house the residents of Dweiqa," he says. "Complaints have been filed with the Public Funds Prosecution about irregularities in allocating new housing units to residents of the area." The irregularities to which he alludes, say residents, amount to blatant extortion on the part of officials. Construction consultant Mamdouh Hamza points out that former minister of housing Mohamed Ibrahim Suleiman refused to implement a study conducted by his consultancy office to develop the afflicted area. "In 1999 our study of the area was presented to the then governor of Cairo, Abdel-Rehim Shehata and he welcomed it. But the then minister of housing ordered the Arab Contractors, the company assigned to develop the area, not to use any material prepared by our consultancy office," Hamza told the Weekly. Rockfalls are not uncommon in the area, which is home to around 800,000 residents. In 1993 falling boulders killed 30 people, but without any alternative housing residents had no other choice but to return. Hamza warns that more rockslides will happen "because of water and sewage leakage from households up the hills". "The rockslide that took place this week was just the beginning. When real estate developer Emaar starts building its upscale development on the hills rockslides will be even more of a danger. The water used in irrigating the huge green areas in Emaar's development will eventually lead to an expansion in the shale layers resulting in rockslides on the edges of the hills." Having migrated to the city 30 years ago from an impoverished rural district in the governorate of Fayoum in quest of a better life, Tamer returned to his village, together with 10 members of his family, to be buried. Shrouded in black, the surviving members of the family still wait for nine more of their relatives to be extracted from the rubble.
