Cameroon: Death toll reaches 33 with 21 injured

At least 33 people died and 21 others were injured when a building collapsed in Cameroon’s business hub Douala, a senior fire officer and the regional governor told AFP on Monday.

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The four-storey block of flats collapsed onto another residential building in the north of the city overnight Saturday to Sunday.

Firefighters put the death toll at 16 on Sunday.

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COLLAPSE IN CAMEROON

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Rescuers were trying to clear the rubble and find survivors throughout Sunday and into Monday, according to a local resident contacted by AFP.

“The situation is under control and firefighters are working to ensure no one remains under the rubble,” Littoral region governor Samuel Dieudonne Ivaha Diboua said during a visit to the site of the disaster on Sunday.

Douala’s Laquintinie hospital on Sunday said it had taken in 13 patients, two of whom — a three-year-old girl and a young woman aged 19 — had died.

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Five people died in similar circumstances in Douala in 2016 when authorities blamed the poor state of repairs and apparent violations of building regulations.

In June that year, local authorities identified 500 buildings in danger of collapse.

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