Death toll from Egypt building collapse rises to 10

Latest victim, a man in his 20s, pulled from under rubble on Wednesday

Civil defence workers search for survivors amid the rubble of a collapsed 14-storey building in Alexandria, Egypt. EPA

The death toll from the collapse of a 14-storey apartment building in the Egyptian city of Alexandria has risen to at least 10, including a medic who was attending to the injured at the site, authorities said on Wednesday.

The incident also left four people injured.

The building, located in Alexandria's district of Muntazah, collapsed early on Monday. Rescue workers have since worked around the clock to pull people and bodies out from under the rubble.

Authorities said the tenth and latest victim was a man in his early 20s, whose body was dug out from beneath the debris early on Wednesday.

Two people, the building's owner and the contractor, have been arrested and face charges of manslaughter and illegal construction, the authorities said.

It was not immediately clear what had caused the collapse, but such incidents are common in Egypt, where shoddy construction is widespread in low-income urban neighbourhoods and rural areas.

With real estate at a premium in cities like Alexandria and Cairo, developers seeking larger profits often violate planning permits and add extra floors to buildings without permission.

Egypt's one-time capital, in late antiquity Alexandria rivalled Rome as a bastion of science, the arts and literature. Now the city of seven million people is often cited for its shoddy buildings and rapid, haphazard urban development springing up on its fringes.

The proliferation of poor construction coincided with high demand for housing after the city became a magnet in the 1970s and 1980s for people from elsewhere in Egypt, especially impoverished southern regions like Sohag and Qena, in search of work.

Until the 1980s, Alexandria had been the summer playground for wealthy Egyptians, cabinet ministers, members of the toppled royal family and Europeans settled in the city since the 19th century. It has since fallen on hard times.

It is now overcrowded, suffers chronic traffic congestion and has become the holiday destination of choice for working class Egyptians, with its former patrons moving to gated holiday villages along the North Coast, west of the city.

Sixteen families lived in the collapsed building as full-time tenants, while the rest of the apartments were rented out, often on a daily basis, to holidaymakers flocking to Alexandria during the summer months.

Egyptian authorities have cracked down on illegal construction in recent years, in some cases moving residents from unsafe homes in shanty towns to newly-built housing projects. Those found to have breached building permits have also been jailed, and in many cases illegally constructed buildings have been demolished.