JEDDAH, 31 March — Two Pakistani workers died and another was seriously injured on Friday when the concrete hangers over a gas station on the Jeddah-Makkah Expressway suddenly collapsed.
The gas station, located near Prince Fawaz housing district, southeast of Jeddah, collapsed at the time of Juma prayers. Early inquiries indicate that the cause was engineering faults.
Civil Defense officers rushed to the site, removed the bodies from the debris and transported the injured to hospital.
The dead have been identified as Ghulam Sultan Yaseen, 27, and Muhammad Haneef Bakhsh, 36.
Muhammad Nawaz, 30, the injured Pakistani, is receiving treatment at Al-Thager Hospital.
An official source at the Civil Defense Department said they have launched an investigation into the incident.
Awad Al-Qahtani, assistant chairman of South Jeddah Municipality, told Arab News that they stopped work on the gas station four years ago because it violated planning rules.
The decision was taken after directives from the Communications Ministry, which said the station exceeded its legal limit by encroaching the highway.
Qahtani added that the owner of the station nevertheless continued work to complete the project — a gas station, shops and housing facilities — every weekend, when inspectors were not working.
This is the second such incident in less than a week. Five building workers were injured, one of them seriously, when a mosque under construction in Jeddah collapsed on Wednesday.
