Building collapse kills at least 9 people in Morocco’s Fez
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Rescuers search through the rubble of a four-storey building that collapsed overnight in the Moroccan city of Fes, on May 21.
PHOTO: AFP
RABAT – At least nine people were killed and others injured when a four-storey building collapsed overnight in the Moroccan city of Fez, the city’s prosecutor said on May 21.
AFP later put the death toll at 15, citing a source from the public prosecutor’s office.
Residents of adjacent buildings in the densely populated neighbourhood were asked to evacuate as a precaution against potential further collapses, while a search for potential survivors was still under way.
By midday, six people had been rescued from the rubble of the building, which was built in the 1980s, Al Oula state television reported.
“The collapse created a wave of fear,” a neighbour told the channel.
Fez, a former capital dating back to the eighth century and the country’s third-most-populous city, has seen similar incidents in recent months, including one in December when two buildings collapsed, killing at least 22 people.
In 2010, the collapse of a minaret in the historic northern city of Meknes killed 41 people.
Mr Adib Ben Ibrahim, housing secretary of state, said in 2025 that approximately 38,800 buildings across the country had been classified as being at risk of collapse. REUTERS
