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1:32 pm
Monday 01 February 2021
Books – Muhammad Shaban:
Photography – Saber Al-Mahlawi
“It will shrink, the tower is ready to collapse.”
The inspection revealed the owner and manufacturer’s interest in establishing the ring tower well. “I’ve been building a necessity for years.”
The tower was built on a thousand meter reinforced base, so the first floor was built with reinforced concrete without using a “single brick”, and was transformed into a semi-grave without drainage.
The nature of the place, which lacks the means of industrial security, made the task of controlling the fire resemble a suicide operation, so a “Dakkak” was used that only made 4 holes of strength and rigidity of armament.
The most prominent question on the horizon during the last hours: What is the fate of the tower?
The response was shocking, especially for homeowners. Once the fire is over, the governorate officials will begin to remove the tower from the ring, which is about to collapse.
The spread of civil defense men and police in the vicinity of the residential tower highlights the situation, especially that the greatest danger is the possibility of it collapsing and falling on the body of the ring road, which is the livelihood of the neighbors from Cairo and Giza.
At night a fire broke out in an apartment on the sixth floor. The fire did not last long and with it calm returned to the area located on the outskirts of Ring Road.
In the early hours of Monday, the situation in the basement – which includes the factory – has calmed down, and the matter has been limited to an escalation of smoke, indicating that the fire has died down.
Moving up to the ground floor, the flames formed separate outposts, marking the end of the fire on that floor. When moving to the first upper floor, it continues to burn without retreating due to the intensity of its fire, in addition to the fall of parts of the ring tower (roof – walls).
From the first moments of the outbreak of the fire, specifically at sunset on Friday, the firefighters presented a heroic epic led by Major General Hisham Sadiq, Director of the General Administration of Civil Protection in Giza.
A high-level task force works round the clock to address the evolving situation, moment by moment, with the participation of Major General Hani Muhammad, Alaa Saeed and Lieutenant Colonel Muhammad Imam.
For its part, a responsible security source said that firefighting operations have been stopped and that the presence of civil defense personnel for observation and cooling tasks and to prevent the spread of the fire to neighboring properties.
The source indicated that it would wait for the fire to burn itself out. “We will not be able to intervene because the tower collapses at any moment … the fire has eaten the cement.”
In a related context, the police evacuated the houses adjacent to the tower, the site of the fire, to save lives in the thick of the smoke.
Firefighting work was halted due to the seriousness of the situation and the possibility of the tower’s collapse due to the fire burning inside and its effect on the concrete columns.
For his part, Major General Ahmed Rashid, the governor of Giza, heard a full explanation from two professors from the Faculty of Engineering at Cairo University on the nature of the massive fire. A faculty member from the College of Engineering recommended not continuing the fire suppression process. A discussion took place between them and the civil defense personnel led by Major General Hisham Sadiq, director of the General Administration of Civil Protection in Giza.
The discussion ended with a recommendation to the firefighters, “Do not use water or foam because the mayors are crying” and wait for the conditions to calm down and the temperature inside the accident site.
The head of the facilities committee blew with surprise that the tower containing the factory and warehouse is being violated, stating: “When the fire is saved, honestly, if the building is hit, we will calm it down.”
It turned out that a residential tower includes 108 housing units, 15 of which are inhabited, and that were evacuated from their residents to ensure their safety.
The tower in the “basement” contains a shoe factory, while the first and second floors were a warehouse in an area of one thousand meters to which the fire spread without reaching the rest of the floor of the property where the fire was located. . .
It turned out that the warehouse’s lack of industrial security caused difficulties in controlling the fire, despite the fact that civil protection used 7 fire trucks and 3 strategic capacity water tanks (35, 15, 8 tons) and the support of 4 provinces.
It turned out that the store is a (basement + two floors) in an area of one thousand meters, and the fire broke out in the “basement” before the fire moved to the first floor and from there to the second; Due to the presence of highly flammable materials. The inspection suggested that the fire occurred due to a short circuit.
