By Kato Jamil
At least 13 people have been confirmed dead after a four-storey building collapsed in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
President Samia Suluhu Hassan said the building collapsed on Saturday, November 16, at 9am at Kariakoo Market.
According to the president, 13 people died while 80 others were rescued, of which 26 have been admitted to hospital.
Suluhu disclosed that the government would cover treatment costs and help with burial arrangements.
She added that the police would collect full details of the collapsed building from its owner to aid in the investigations.
Preliminary investigations show the upper floors were used as storage godowns contrary to design use, which led to the overloading of structures.
The Dar es Salaam Regional Commissioner, Albert Chalamila, noted the fatalities were not due to suffocation but injuries sustained from the collapse of the high-rise building.
He explained that the victims died from being struck by falling debris, crushed under the building, or injured by steel rods.
“Up to this moment, there are no reports of deaths caused by suffocation, according to the immediate updates we have received,” Chalamila said as reported by The Citizen Tanzania.
Elsewhere, all the tenants living in a five-storey building that collapsed in Uthiru on Tuesday, May 7, were accounted for.
There was a scare after the building located near the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) began sinking at around 7pm, trapping several people, including children, inside.
However, on Wednesday, May 8, the society indicated that at least 10 people had been rescued from the debris and attended to at the site and in the hospital.
