An eight-storey building collapsed in Istanbul on Thursday, but authorities said they did not expect a great number of casualties as people ran away when they heard the building start to crack.
It was not clear how many people were inside the building in the Sirinevler district on the European side of Istanbul, but most people had left the building before the collapse, Istanbul’s governor Muammer Guler said.
”Most of the poeple left the building when they heard cracking sounds, but a few people re-entered to get their things,” Guler told TV.
Rescue workers were digging through the rubble of the apartment block, which collapsed in the early evening. Istanbul Mayor Kadir Topbas said it was not immediately clear why the building had fallen.
Rescue workers told Turkish TV there were sounds coming from under the remains of the building.
Television stations showed pictures of men and women crying around the rubble and sorting through the remains of the building, which were spread out over a city block.
Earlier this year a woman died when a building collapsed on the outskirts of Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city. Shoddy construction, lack of building regulation and corruption have been blamed for past building collapses in Turkey. — Reuters