More than 12 people were injured when a four-storey building collapsed at a commercial center in Cameroon’s Douala.
At least 12 people have died and more than a dozen others have been injured after a building collapsed in Cameroon, government officials said.
A four-storey building collapsed in Cameroon’s capital Douala, 210km (130 miles) west of the capital Yaounde, the regional governor said on Sunday.
The missile crashed and landed on a small building, around 1 am local time (00:00 GMT).
“Twelve have died and others are in hospital for treatment,” Samuel Dieudonne Ivaha Diboua, governor of the Littoral region, told reporters at the site, adding that 31 people were affected.
“The number of casualties may increase. Rescuers, with the help of Cameroonian government forces, are still digging through the wreckage to see if any bodies can be recovered,” he added.
Laquintinie Hospital in Douala said it had received 13 patients and said two – a three-year-old girl and a 19-year-old woman – had died.
It said three of the injured children were receiving emergency pediatric treatment.
Charles Elie Zang Zang, a Douala municipal councilor, said rescue organizations are searching for survivors.
Firefighters have been ordered to join the Red Cross and other rescue organizations in the country in the search.
Residents of Ndogbong area where the incident took place said they are scared.
“We heard people screaming … and struggling to help others get out of danger, but we couldn’t do it with our own equipment and [garden] plows,” said Gaspard Ndoppo, who lives near the collapsed buildings.
Five people died in similar circumstances in Douala in 2016 when authorities blamed poor maintenance and violations of housing laws.
In June of that year, the local authorities realized that 500 houses were in danger of collapsing.
Although the cause of the collapse is not clear, residents said it appears to have been damaged by exposed and worn rods.
The Douala city council is currently demolishing buildings in areas that are at high risk of flooding or landslides.
The building that collapsed on Sunday was not known to be demolished.