Baghdad, Aug 21, (dpa/GNA) – A day after a landslide hit a Shiite Muslim shrine in Iraq, hopes of rescuing further survivors are fading, officials said on Sunday.
On Saturday, a hill collapsed on the Qattarat al-Imam Ali shrine in the Karbala province, around 210 kilometres south of Baghdad, trapping an unknown number of people.
Rescue teams have already saved four people and around five others are believed to be still under the rubble, the chief of Iraq’s civil defence service, Major-General Kadhem Salman, said on Sunday.
Oxygen supplies have been provided through the holes for those trapped under the rubble, according to the official.
“But I am not optimistic about reaching people alive under the rubble of the shrine,” Salman added.
“We expect that they have sustained very serious injuries due to the fall of dozens of concrete slabs on them.”
He added that rescue operations were still ongoing with the help of advanced equipment.
However, Interior Ministry spokesman Khalid al-Muhanna, ruled out possibility of recovering survivors.
“There is no communication with them,” he added without elaborating.
Around 10 people, including children and women were trapped, due to the landslide, Iraqi Kurdish website Rudaw reported, citing eyewitnesses. “Huge rocks fell on the visitors,” one witness, named Sijad Moussa, told Rudaw.
Preliminary investigations showed that the landslide had resulted from saturation of the area and an earthen embankment next to the shrine with humidity, civil defence sources said.
The Qattarat Ali is one of Iraq’s Shiite shrines drawing visitors mainly in the Islamic lunar month of Muharram, commemorating the 7th century killing of Hussein, the grandson of the prophet Mohammed, at the Battle of Karbala.
GNA