Second Tabarja building collapses, no injuries

A building adjacent to one that collapsed two weeks ago in Tabarja collapsed Tuesday. Members of the Lebanese Army, who were stationed some 200 meters from the building at the time of the collapse, were covered in a thick coat of dust but no injuries were reported. Police and Civil Defense personnel responded immediately, traveling to the scene in the Kesrouan district along with Tabarja’s mayor and a technical team to inspect the area. Meanwhile, Civil Defense teams are still waiting for the necessary equipment to remove the rubble of the first collapse to recover the body of an Indian worker who has been trapped underneath for 11 days. On March 9, seven people were injured when the building collapsed in the vicinity of Tabarja Beach complex. Interior Minister Marwan Charbel has said that the building belonged to a construction firm that has been unregistered since 1970. High-level security sources said Tuesday that they had expected the collapse of the second building after the March 9 incident and that authorities had cordoned off the area. Heavy rain has been blamed for the collapse of several structurally unsound edifices in the country, including most recently the wall of a school’s courtyard in the village of Bhenin in the district of Minyeh, north Lebanon, which killed three students. In January, a decades-old seven-story building in the neighborhood of Fassouh in Ashrafieh collapsed, killing 27 people and injuring 12 others. The incident sent waves of shock and concern across the country.