Apartment building collapses in central Turkey, trapping 2 Syrians

Rescuers were battling to reach two people trapped under a collapsed apartment building in central Turkey on Saturday, officials said, with three others had already been rescued. No deaths were reported.

The collapse comes as there is renewed focus on building safety following the deaths of 78 people in a hotel fire on Tuesday.

Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said 79 people were registered as living in the four-storey apartment block in the city of Konya, some 260 kilometres (160 miles) south of the capital Ankara.

TV images showed emergency workers sifting through a large pile of rubble on Saturday morning following the building’s collapse Friday evening.

Those remaining under the debris were Syrian nationals, Yerlikaya said, adding 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.

The incident occurred just three days after a fire ripped through a 12-storey hotel at a ski resort in northwestern Turkey, killing 78 people. The investigation into the blaze is examining whether proper fire prevention measures were in place.

Questions over building safety have resurfaced two weeks before the second anniversary of an earthquake that hit southern Turkey and north Syria, killing more than 59,000.

The high death toll 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 some 30 others. Structural flaws and negligence were blamed for the collapse.

Associated Press