While The Pharaoh Enjoys Retirement in Luxury in Sharm El-Sheikh.....Poor Egyptians Are Buried Alive!

Cairo rockslide search continues

Al-Jazeera

"Rescuers are still looking for hundreds of people feared trapped in the rubble of homes crushed in a massive rockslide at a shantytown on the outskirts of Cairo. The death toll from Saturday's rockslide stands at 31, with 47 injured.....

Some estimates put the number of people still missing at 500.

Huge boulders, each weighing "hundreds of tonnes" according to one official, broke off Moqattam hill early on Saturday. They destroyed at least 35 homes in the impoverished and densely populated Manshiyet Nasser neighbourhood.....

Rescue work on Saturday was delayed because it took about five hours for cranes and special heavy lifting machinery to arrive before the grim task of removing rocks and rubble could begin.

Furious residents hurled stones and insults at authorities for "inefficient" rescue efforts on Sunday.....

The reason for the rockfall was not immediately known, but residents said work had been taking place on the hill for several weeks and that the authorities had been warned about the dangers.
"They [authorities] were doing some work up on the hill. I am sure this is what caused the rockslide," Mohamed Gaber, a resident, said.

Mohamed al-Sayyed, 80, also blamed the authorities. "They had said they would evacuate the entire neighbourhood in order to set up an industrial zone. We were happy about this ... but they did no such thing.".....

In 1994, a rockslide in the same area killed 30 people, but without any alternative housing, residents were forced to return.....

Egypt has a poor track record of building safety, often blamed on the flouting of construction regulations.....

In a survey carried out by UN Habitat, a human settlement programme, Manshiyet Nasser is described as "the largest squatter, informal area in Cairo. There are 350,000 persons living in this area on about 850 acres with a gross residential density more than 400 persons per acre".

"The area is suffering from poor living qualities, inadequate services, lack of infrastructure, and deteriorated environmental conditions," the survey said.

There are more than 80 shantytowns in and around Cairo, housing millions of people with no legal basis......"

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