Sharjah: A multi-storey car park under construction collapsed on Sunday injuring six workers, a senior official at Sharjah Civil Defence said.
The car park is located at Abu Shagara and belongs to the Sharjah Municipality, which is currently building 40 multi-storey car parks around the city.
Brigadier Humaid Al Hudaidi, director general of the Sharjah Police, told Gulf News that four workers sustained moderate injuries and two others sustained minor injuries.
"All those injured were transferred to Kuwait Hospital and are recovering from their injuries," he said, adding that the accident took place at 12.30pm.
Brigadier Al Hudaidi also said that police have launched an investigation in cooperation with the Sharjah Municipality to determine the cause of the building's collapse. No arrests have been made as yet.
Representatives of the contracting company were on the scene of the accident but refused to comment.
Search operation
A rescue and search operation was carried out and sniffer dogs were brought in by police to find any workers that may have been trapped in the rubble, but Brigadier Al Hudaidi confirmed that nobody was trapped.
Colonel Mohammad Eid Al Madloom, head of Sharjah Police Operations Room, said police received a call about the accident from the site engineers and a police patrol arrived on the scene within two minutes, which helped in saving the lives of the injured workers.
According to a site engineer, the building under construction consisted of the ground and first floor, and was 90 metres high and 61 metres in width.
The building was intended to be a nine-storey car park with an area of approximately 5,300 square meters, offering a total of 1,681 parking spaces.
"Construction started in July and we had almost finished with the first floor," he said, adding that construction of the building was expected to continue for 60 months.
Colonel Waheed Eisa Al Serkal, director general of the Sharjah Civil Defence, said: "Many of the workers were already out of the building during the time of the accident, because it occurred during their rest hours. The majority of workers had already gone out to their accommodations."
Engineer Sultan Al Mualla, director general of the Sharjah Municipality, said municipality inspectors had checked the building at 8.30 on Sunday morning and did not find any problems with it.
He also added that the accident happened several minutes after the workers had left for their midday break.
