Seven killed as apartment block collapses
A five-storey apartment building has collapsed in the Bangladesh capital today, killing at least seven people and injuring another six, officials said.
Fire official Ataur Rahman says several more people are feared trapped after the collapse in Dhaka’s central Tejgaon district. Some of the debris fell on nearby tin shanties.
He says seven bodies have been pulled from the wreckage and that six injured people have been rescued. Mr Rahman says army troops have joined the rescue work.
He said it is not known how many people were inside the building at the time of the accident.
Officials later said the death toll had reached at least 10, with several others still trapped, feared dead.
Some of the casualties were residents in a nearby shanty, and army troops were brought in to help the rescue effort.
Officials said the originally four-storey building was built on what was once a canal and the owner had been adding another storey to it.
The cabinet minister in charge of overseeing local government, Jahangir Kabir Nanak, said the government had ordered an investigation into the collapse.
