Casablanca -
The death toll
after three buildings collapsed in Morocco's largest city and commercial
capital Casablanca rose to 23 on Sunday, officials said.
Fifteen bodies
were recovered from the rubble in one day on Sunday, including two children and
Moroccan actress Amal Maarouf and her mother, local authorities said.
News website
Yibiladi said the actress had continued to respond to calls on her mobile phone
for several hours after the calamity but did not elaborate.
Medics said
earlier on Sunday that 17 people were still being treated in hospital, while
authorities warned of more buried bodies.
Rescue operations
were temporarily suspended on Sunday afternoon as emergency teams sought more
sophisticated equipment, sparking anger from relatives of the missing.
By evening the
site had been cordoned off and the media barred, drawing criticism.
“Search for bodies
suspended, equipment deficient. Three days to notice it,” the Economist
newspaper scoffed in a post on its Internet site.
It was still not
known why the three apartment blocks in El-Hank district collapsed on Friday.
Residents told AFP
the accident probably resulted from “haphazard works” on the lower floors of
the buildings, as well as a general lack of maintenance.
An official
inquiry has begun, and the residents of three adjoining buildings have been
evacuated as a precaution.
Firemen managed to
rescue at least 55 people, including six children, after the apartment blocks
crumpled.
King Mohamed VI,
who happened to be in the city at the time, visited the scene of the disaster
and the injured in hospital.
Casablanca has a
population of around five million, with many living in squalid conditions in
sprawling slums, some exposed to serious safety hazards.
Two people died at
the end of 2012 when a building came down after bad weather.
The housing
minister said at the time that between 4 000 and 7 000 buildings in Casablanca
were at risk of collapse. - Sapa-AFP
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