Two African women were killed and several others got injured when a four-storey building in Jeddah's Al-Baghdadiah District shortly before Friday prayer. Around 25 families were housed in the building. Authorities said the cause of the collapse has yet to be established. The body of one of the deceased woman was recovered from the debris about half-an-hour of the start of the rescue operation while the other was recovered two hours later. Capt. Abdul Rahman Al-Ghamdi, deputy spokesman for the Civil Defense in Makkah region, said that the adjacent buildings had been evacuated as a precaution. Officials said that the rescue efforts were delayed because it was difficult to take heavy machinery to the congested neighborhood where the unfortunate incident took place. However, search operation was still under way till the filing of this report. King Abdul Aziz Hospital, King Fahd General Hospital, and Al-Thagher Hospital have declared states of emergency. Meanwhile, security authorities have closed all roads leading to the collapse site to ease movement of ambulances and rescue operations. The Friday's collapse is the fifth in a row in two months' time in the old neighborhoods of the city including the collapse of a building in Al-Sahefa District, which killed six people. Citizens and experts have called on the relevant authorities to take measures on a war footing to decide the fate of about 8,000 threatened buildings in Jeddah's old areas to prevent any untoward incident.
