Pinoy laborer killed in building accident in Saudi

A Filipino laborer was among seven workers who died in Jeddah when a building under construction collapsed on Thursday, Arab News reported on its online edition Saturday. The identities of the fatalities were not revealed. Four other workers were injured in the incident near the Yanbu Industrial College. The report said Prince Saud ibn Abdullah Thunayan, chairman of the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu, visited the accident scene in the Yanbu Industrial City to monitor efforts for rescuing workers trapped inside the debris. Civil defense workers took seven hours to dig out the bodies. The accident took place while construction work was in progress for a new college building. There were speculations that the accident might have been caused when the concrete mixer vehicle hit the building while workers were inside. But the construction site’s architect said the heavy load of concrete pumped into the building might have caused the collapse. The majority of workers involved in the accident were from Egypt, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Some bodies were buried inside the concrete and the civil defense officers toiled hard to dig them out, according to a report in Al-Madinah newspaper. Three of the injured workers were Egyptian and the other was a Sri Lankan, said the director of the emergency health service in the Madinah region. “The condition of an Egyptian worker is serious and he remains in intensive care," he added. - GMANews.TV