By Jailan Zayan
Cairo - Rescuers on Sunday hunted for scores of people feared trapped in the rubble of homes crushed in a massive rockslide in a northern Cairo shantytown, as the toll hit at least 30 killed and 47 injured.
Witnesses said workers shifted mounds of rubble and rocks during the night in a desperate race to find survivors of Saturday's tragedy, with some estimates putting the number of people still missing at 500.
Huge boulders each weighing "hundreds of tons" according to one official, broke off Moqattam hill early on Saturday, destroying at least 35 homes in the impoverished and densely populated Manshiyet Nasser neighbourhood.
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The section of hill that broke away was estimated at 60 metres (yards) wide and 15 metres long.
Rescuers used 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.
According to the health ministry, rescuers had by Sunday morning recovered a total of 30 bodies while 47 people were being treated for injuries, some in critical condition.
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".
Rescue work on Saturday was delayed after it took some five hours before cranes and special heavy lifting machinery arrived and the grim task of removing rocks and rubble could begin.
"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.
In July five people were killed, including seven-year-old twins, when a three-storey building in the Nile Delta collapsed.
Last December 35 people were killed when a 12-storey building in Alexandria came down. Two years earlier, in the same city, the collapse of a six-storey building killed 19 people. Three extra floors had been added illegally.
Tougher legislation against construction firms that ignore the law was introduced in 1996 after a building in Cairo's residential suburb of Heliopolis caved in, killing 64 people. - Sapa-AFP
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