World

Concerns over building safety after two die as apartment block collapses

Rescue teams retrieved the bodies from the building in Konya, 160 miles south of the capital Ankara.

Emergency and rescue team members look for survivors following the building collapse (Ugur Yildirim/Dia Photo via AP)
Emergency and rescue team members look for survivors following the building collapse (Ugur Yildirim/Dia Photo via AP) (AP)

Rescuers pulled the bodies of a 23-year-old woman and a man believed to be her husband from under a collapsed apartment building in central Turkey on Saturday, state-run media said.

Three others were rescued from the wreckage and being treated in a hospital, the Anadolu Agency reported.

The collapse comes amid renewed focus on building safety following the deaths of 78 people in a fire on Tuesday that ripped through a 12-storey hotel at a ski resort in north-western Turkey.

Investigators are examining whether proper fire prevention measures were in place.

Emergency and rescue team members work in the aftermath of a building that collapsed in the city of Konya (Ugur Yildirim/Dia Photo via AP)
Emergency and rescue team members work in the aftermath of a building that collapsed in the city of Konya (Ugur Yildirim/Dia Photo via AP) (Ugur Yildirim/AP)

Interior minister Ali Yerlikaya said on Saturday that 79 people were registered as living in the four-storey apartment block in the city of Konya, about 160 miles south of the capital, Ankara.

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Earlier, Mr Yerlikaya said the last two people remaining under the debris were Syrian nationals. He added that the cause of the building collapse was not immediately known.

“If there is a fault, negligence or anything else, we will learn it together,” he told journalists.

TV images showed emergency workers sifting through a large pile of rubble on Saturday morning following the building’s collapse on Friday evening. Anadolu Agency reported that four people were detained as part of the investigation.

The second anniversary of an earthquake that hit southern Turkey and north Syria, killing more than 59,000 people, is just two weeks away.

The high death toll at the time was due in part to building safety regulations being ignored.

In 2004, a 12-storey apartment building collapsed in Konya, claiming the lives of 92 people and injuring 30 others.

Structural flaws and negligence were blamed for the collapse.