Many buildings in Cairo are little more than death traps, reports Reem Leila Seven people were killed and two injured when a house collapsed in the narrow alley of Al-Muawen in the Al-Darb Al-Ahmar district of Cairo. The residential building, which dates from the 1970s, collapsed in the early hours of the morning of 14 July. The building, which was originally four stories, was subject to a demolition order in 1993 for violating construction regulations. Though the removal of the whole building had been ordered, only the upper stories were demolished, leaving the ground floor which the owner subsequently rented -- illegally, points out Salah El-Azzazi, head of Middle Cairo district -- to construction workers and students for LE3 a day. The collapsed building, says El-Azzazi, was one of up to 8,000 structures which the governorate has identified as being in danger of collapse. Yet persuading people to leave homes that could, quite literally, cost them their lives, is always difficult. "Owners do not want to lose their buildings. Families refuse to leave their homes out of fear of becoming homeless, although the governorate can provide them with alternative housing. Cairo governorate offered alternative houses to the eight families who were living in the top three storeys of the collapsed building before the floors were demolished. Even so they refused to leave," says El-Azzazi. Earlier this month a five-storey building collapsed in the Shubra district of Cairo killing six. Two people were killed in May 2008, in the Sayeda Zeinab district of Cairo, when a building collapsed during restoration work. In January 2008, when a seven-storey block collapsed in Alexandria, 33 people lost their lives. In November 2006, seven people died in the collapse of a four-storey building in Mansoura. A year earlier, the illegal addition of three floors to a residential building in Alexandria left 19 dead. In the same year 16 people, including two children, were killed, and 17 injured when a six-storey building collapsed in Alexandria. It was subsequently found that the addition of an extra three storeys to the building had been made illegally. Many of the buildings which collapsed were constructed from poor materials and in contravention of building regulations. The consequences of such haphazard construction work is invariably devastating, says El-Azzazi. Following the 1992 earthquake that killed 500 people in Cairo, Al-Ahram newspaper quoted officials as saying 40 per cent of homes in the capital were unsafe. Al-Darb Al-Ahmar lies in the heart of Cairo's historic Islamic district, and many residents blame the collapse of the house on nearby renovation work. "We heard a loud noise early in the morning. By the time we reached the place, we saw the roof collapsing on top of the workers who were sleeping on the ground floor," says Zeinhom Mursi, who lives in an adjacent building. It was not unusual, he said, for 20 people to be sleeping in each room. Had not many of them been visiting their families at the time of the accident the death toll could have been far higher. Cairo Governor, Abdel-Azim Wazir, has announced that the families of the dead will receive LE5,000 in compensation. Rescue teams were unable to get heavy digging equipment through the narrow alleyway, and had to search through the rubble by hand. After three hours they found three survivors among the rubble, including two 12-year-old children. Following the collapse the residents of four neighbouring houses were evicted. Tarek Amin is among them. "All we want is somewhere safe to live," he says. "We want to be transferred to alternative housing. As it is we are homeless."
