Moroccan minaret disaster toll hits 41
(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-02-20 21:16
 |
Large Medium Small |
|
|
RABAT: Worshippers were still trapped under rubble on Saturday one day after a 400-year-old Moroccan mosque minaret collapsed during prayers, residents and officials said.
|
||||
"More people are still under the rubble after all this time since the catastrophe. We do not know how many. There are many police and other rescuers but they seem very slow and inefficient," resident Khaled Rahmouni, whose home is near the mosque, told Reuters by telephone.
The Lalla Khenata mosque minaret in the old Bab el Bardiyine neighbourhood of Meknes, about 140 km (80 miles) southwest of Rabat, collapsed during Friday's mass prayers, burying most of the 300 worshippers gathered there.
Local civil defence commander Alaoui Ismaili said the rescue operation was slow because of the narrow streets in the old city medina district.
"We are using only manpower, not equipment as we cannot bring heavy equipment through these streets," he said.
"We are moving with great caution also because the walls of houses and shops adjacent to the mosque are fragile especially after the heavy rains of the past days."
Residents prepared to bury the dead on Saturday. Some said people had told the authorities before the tragedy about cracks in the mosque walls.
"People are seething with anger because of that," said one man, who gave his name only as Mohamed.
"We told them many times before that there were widening cracks on the walls and that its minaret had begun tipping over but they ignored the warning," he said, speaking by telephone from the scene.
Mohamed and other residents said they believed the accident could have been averted if the warning had been heeded.
"We believe in God and what the fate bring for us but this time lives could had been spared if the authorities did not show they do not care about what people say," said resident Zouhaier, who did not want to give his full name.
Neglected old buildings in the old quarters of Morocco's cities collapse fairly often, but the fall of a minaret is rare.
Moroccan state media blamed heavy rains for the collapse. But a senior official at the state weather service dismissed that theory.
"The weather was not especially bad in Meknes. It would be fair to look for another factor than the weather," he said.
