Guinea: six people missing after building collapse near Conakry

Six people, including a child, are missing after the collapse of a six-storey building under construction in a suburb of the Guinean capital Conakry, local sources told AFP on Tuesday.

The building collapsed late on Monday afternoon. "There are five workers and a child under the rubble", said a local official and a worker present at the scene.

The building was located in a quiet district of Matoto (south of Conakry), between other residential and office buildings, according to an AFP correspondent who visited the site.

An impressive security force of police and gendarmes was deployed at the scene, where civil protection workers and rescue workers were working to try to find any survivors under the rubble.

"This building was part of a social housing project launched by the Guinean government to house public sector workers", explained the local councillor.

"The workers had already finished the fifth slab and were starting to build the sixth when everything collapsed. For the moment, none of the people buried are responding to the calls of the rescuers. But we're still hoping for a miracle by rescuing some of the workers trapped under the rubble", said a worker on the site.

The construction work was being carried out by MAK BTP, the company responsible for building social housing in this suburb of Conakry.

Numerous construction and public works companies have been set up in Guinea in recent years by relatives of senior government officials. Every year, buildings under construction collapse in Conakry.

The sector suffers in particular from a lack of supervision of the work by the services of the Ministry of Urban Planning and Housing, which is suspected of corruption by some site owners.