Death Toll Rises to 11 in Building Collapse
TEHRAN -- Rescuers dug through debris Tuesday of a building collapse in southwestern Iran that killed at least 11 people, fearful that many more could still be trapped beneath the rubble as authorities arrested the city’s mayor in a widening probe of the disaster.
The collapse Monday of an under-construction 10-story tower at the Metropol Building exposed its cement blocks and steel beams.
Video from the initial collapse Monday showed thick dust rise over Abadan, a crucial oil-producing city in Khuzestan province, near Iran’s border with Iraq.
The Metropol Building included two towers, one already built and the other under construction, though its bottom commercial floors had finished and already had tenants.
On Tuesday, an emergency official suggested that some 50 people may have been inside of the building at the time of the collapse, including people moving into its basement floors. However, it wasn’t clear if that figure included those already pulled from the rubble. At least 39 people were injured, most of them lightly, officials earlier said.
An angry crowd at the site chased and beat Abadan Mayor Hussein Hamidpour immediately after the collapse, according to the ILNA news agency and online videos.
Police later arrested Hamidpour and nine others, Iranian media reported Tuesday. Initially, authorities said the building’s owner and its general contractor had been arrested as well, though a later report from the judiciary’s Mizan news agency said Tuesday that the two men had been killed in the collapse.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi offered his condolences and appealed on the local authorities to get to the bottom of the case. Iran’s vice president in charge of economic affairs, Mohsen Razaei, and Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi visited the site.
Lawmakers opened a separate parliament inquiry into the case Tuesday, trying to determine why the building on Amir Kabir Street collapsed during a sandstorm. However, there was no major earthquake recorded Monday near Abadan, some 660 kilometers (410 miles) southwest of Tehran.