Uganda: Deadly building collapse kills one

At least one person was killed and seven others injured when a six-storey building collapsed in Uganda’s capital Kampala, near the Makerere University.

Seven people pulled from under the rubble were rushed to hospitals around Kampala.

The cause of the collapse is not yet known.

It is also unclear how many people are still trapped under the rubble even though some of them are said to have made phone calls to their loved ones.

One person just taken out of collapsed building outside Makerere University and rushed off to hospital. #Uganda pic.twitter.com/Psf3LigYGM

— Patience Atuhaire (@patuhaire) April 11, 2016

A police spokesperson said: “The rescue operation is still going on. I cannot say what caused this because that is the work of the technical people who are going to do the investigation, who are going to do a thorough, thorough investigation, but as we speak now, we have begun the operation which might take us days.”

VIDEO: Mechanic explains what happened before building collapsed outside Makerere varsity (Luganda) https://t.co/mUuPzZrN9O #KampalaTraffic

— Louis Jadwong (@Jadwong) April 11, 2016

A Kampala resident, Hope Erumana bemoaned the fast pace of development in the Ugandan capital.

“What has happened today! I have become so sympathetic. Because people are building just within two months, flats just go up. They are even building night and day.”

Several businesses had reportedly been occupying the basement and ground-floors of the partly finished building before the collapse.