Egypt rockslide survivors clash with police

Furious residents of a Cairo shantytown Sunday hurled stones and insults at authorities for "inefficient" rescue efforts after a massive rockslide flattened homes and buried whole families under the rubble.

"Residents are throwing stones at police and shouting at civil defence officials. They are angry because they say rescue efforts are slow and inefficient," a security official told newswire AFP on condition of anonymity.

Witnesses told AFP that they had been told to vacate the area and leave the rescue work to the experts, sparking anger among shocked and grieving residents.

According to the health ministry, at least 31 people were killed and 47 injured in Saturday's accident after huge boulders each weighing "hundreds of tonnes" according to one official had crushed some 35 homes in the impoverished and over populated Manshiyet Nasser neighbourhood.

By Sunday morning cranes and special heavy lifting machinery could still not access the scene, the security official said.

Rescuers worked through the night in a desperate race to find survivors of the tragedy, with some estimates putting the number of people still missing at 500.

The section of hill that broke away was estimated at 60 metres wide and 15 metres long.

Rescuers were using their bare hands to shift debris in a desperate bid to find victims while specially trained dog handlers were deployed to try to locate survivors.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak ordered the government to provide housing for those left homeless and issue compensation to families of the victims, the state-owned Al-Ahram reported.

After an emergency meeting on Saturday evening, Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif said that there would be a full review of housing settlements built throughout the country without construction permits, known as "ashwaeeyat".

"It was horrible, like an earthquake," said Farghali Gharib, who lost eight members of his family in the rockslide - five sisters, a sister-in-law and her two children.

The reason for the rockfall was not immediately known but angry residents said work had been taking place on the hill for several weeks, and that the authorities had been warned about the dangers.

"They [authorities] were doing some work up on the hill. I am sure this is what caused the rockslide," said shoemaker Mohamed Gaber.

Mohamed al-Sayyed, 80, too blamed the authorities. "They had said they would evacuate the entire neighbourhood in order to set up an industrial zone. We were happy about this... but they did no such thing."

Driver Abdel Latif Hossam said "there had already been some landslides, slightly hurting some people".

Others said that the area where the disaster struck had been declared unsafe but that alternative housing promised to them had been sold off.

The interior ministry said in a statement that plans were underway to evacuate the area in a month's time.

Most of the brick-built dwellings in the district have two floors and were put up without adhering to planning regulations and without construction permits.

The arid Moqattam hill is broken up by chalky rock slopes, and a number of unofficial housing areas are huddled at its base, along the length of a main road into the city.

Egypt has a poor track record of building safety often blamed on the flouting of construction regulations, particularly involving adding extra floors without permission.

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