At least eight people dead as building collapses in Cairo

An apartment building collapsed on Tuesday in Egypt’s capital, killing at least eight people, authorities said.

The health ministry said in a statement that the collapse of the six-story building in Cairo’s western neighbourhood of Waili also injured three people, who were hospitalised.

Cairo’s governor, Ibrahim Saber, ordered the evacuation of neighbouring houses as a precautionary measure, according to a statement from the governor’s office.

It was not immediately clear what caused the building, which was constructed in the 1960s, to collapse. The governor’s office said that prosecutors were investigating.

Building collapses are common in Egypt, where shoddy construction and a lack of maintenance are widespread in shantytowns, poor city neighbourhoods and rural areas.

The government has tried to crack down on illegal building in recent years after decades of lax enforcement.

Authorities are also building new cities and neighbourhoods to rehouse those living in at-risk areas.

But many Egyptian cities still contain entire areas of unlicensed apartment buildings and shantytowns that do not follow building codes and regulations.