The death toll from a building collapse in southwestern Iran more than two weeks ago has risen to 41 after three more bodies were found, local authorities said on Monday.
The previous figure, announced on Sunday by local authorities, was 38 dead.
“The number of victims of the Metropol accident rises to 41, after the discovery and identification of three other bodies,” said the governor of the city of Abadan, Ehsan Abbaspour, quoted by the official Iranian news agency IRNA.
On May 23, the Metropol building, which was still under construction in Abadan, one of the main cities in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, partially collapsed.
This disaster, one of the deadliest in years in Iran, led to a series of demonstrations throughout the country in solidarity with the families of the victims and against the authorities, accused of corruption and incompetence.
The regional justice declared having arrested 13 people, including the mayor of Abadán and two former mayors, accused of being “responsible” for the tragedy.
“The rest of the building structure will be completely destroyed after the rubble is removed,” Vice President in charge of Executive Affairs Solat Mortazavi was quoted as saying by IRNA.
In 2017, the collapse in central Tehran of the Plasco Building, a 15-story shopping mall dating from the early 1960s, killed 22 people, including 16 firefighters.
Death toll from building collapse in Iran rises to 34
Source: Observadora
