Questions follow fatal building collapse
ISTANBUL: At least two people were killed and six wounded after an eightstorey residential building collapsed in Istanbul yesterday.
It was not immediately clear why the building, in the Kartal district on the Asian side of the city, had collapsed.
Istanbul Governor Ali Yerlikaya said 43 people were registered in 14 apartments at the address, but that the top three floors of the building had been built illegally.
Yerlikaya also said there was a textile workshop on the ground floor that was operating without a licence.
The chairman for Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority said search and rescue operations were under way. President Tayyip Erdogan sent the interior and environment ministers to the site, stateowned Anadolu agency reported.
Emergency teams pulled at least three people out alive as crowds surrounded the site.