10 killed in building collapse in Syria

A building collapsed in Syria’s second city of Aleppo on Sunday killing 10 people including one child, state media reported, adding that rescue efforts were ongoing.

The five-storey structure in the city’s Sheikh Maksoud neighbourhood collapsed “due to a water leak in the building’s foundations”, state news agency SANA quoted a police source as saying.

Rescuers, civil defence forces and firefighters continued their search for others believed to be missing in the rubble, the news agency added.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights meanwhile reported that the 10 victims were all displaced people from the northern district of Afrin.

The Sheikh Maksoud neighbourhood is predominantly inhabited by Syrian Kurds, including fighters, many of whom fled from Afrin after Turkey began an offensive there in 2018.

Nearly half a million people have been killed in Syria’s conflict since it broke out in 2011, and about half of its pre-war population has been displaced.

Many of those displaced have had to move into buildings that are structurally unsound, resulting in relatively frequent collapses.

Last September, a building collapse in the Ferdaws neighbourhood of Aleppo killed 10 people, including three children