Rescue teams search for survivors in building collapse that killed at least 9 in northern Lebanon

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BEIRUT (AP) — At least nine people were killed and six rescued from the rubble of a multistory apartment building that collapsed Sunday in the city of Tripoli in northern Lebanon, state media reported.

Rescue teams were continuing to dig through the rubble in search of an additional eight people believed to be missing, the state-run National News Agency reported. The bodies pulled out included a child and a woman.

Dozens of people crowded around the site of the crater left by the collapsed building, with some shooting in the air.

The building was in the neighborhood of Bab Tabbaneh, one of the poorest areas in Lebanon’s second largest city, where residents have long complained of government neglect and shoddy infrastructure. Building collapses are not uncommon in Tripoli due to poor building standards.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry announced that those injured in the collapse would receive treatment at the state’s expense.

The national syndicate for property owners in a statement called the collapse the result of “blatant negligence and shortcomings of the Lebanese state toward the safety of citizens and their housing security,” and said it is “not an isolated incident.”

The syndicate called for the government to launch a comprehensive national survey of buildings at risk of collapse.

Government officials pledged to assist in providing shelter to the survivors and to residents of surrounding buildings that were evacuated out of fear that they were also structurally unsound.

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said in a statement that the government would also work to reinforce any buildings deemed to be in danger of collapse. Determining where those buildings are is the responsibility of local authorities, he said.

The government “will not shirk our responsibility, and we will continue to fulfill our duties completely, including holding accountable anyone who may have been negligent in this matter,” he said.