JEDDAH, 10 March 2007 — Seven workers, including two Egyptians and a Filipino, died and four others injured when a building under construction close to the Yanbu Industrial College collapsed on Thursday, informed sources said. The identities of the other four fatalities were not revealed.
Prince Saud ibn Abdullah Thunayan, chairman of the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu, visited the accident scene in the Yanbu Industrial City to monitor efforts for rescuing workers trapped inside the debris. Civil defense workers took seven hours to dig out the bodies.
The accident took place while construction work was in progress for a new college building.
According to one source, the accident might have been caused when the concrete mixer vehicle hit the building while workers were inside.
But architect Essam Awadallah said the heavy load of concrete pumped onto the building might have caused the collapse.
The majority of workers involved in the accident were from Egypt, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Some bodies were buried inside the concrete and the civil defense officers toiled hard to dig them out, according to Al-Madinah newspaper.
Three of the injured workers were Egyptian and the other was a Sri Lankan, said the director of the emergency health service in the Madinah region. “The condition of an Egyptian worker is serious and he remains in intensive care,” he added.
