Massive boulders crashed down on an Egyptian shantytown on the outskirts of the capital, Cairo, killing at least 24 people, in the latest disaster to strike the country.
At least eight boulders, some the size of small houses, peeled away from the towering Muqattam cliffs outside Cairo and buried about 50 homes in the sprawling Manshiyet Nasr slum, one of the shantytowns ringing Africa's most populous city.
The collapse occurred in the early morning on Saturday, when most residents were still sleeping after waking earlier to eat ahead of the day time fast of Islam's holy month of Ramadan.
"It was as if a knife sliced the cliff into pieces," said 27-year-old resident Sayyed Rashad.
A security official said 35 people were injured and many people are believed to be buried under the hundreds of tons of rock that fell. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the press.
"My whole family is underneath the rock," sobbed Anwar Ragab by phone to AP as he watched a body being pulled from under the rock. "I don't know what to do, I can't do anything - I just want my children back."
The pulverised remains of the town were covered by a thick layer of dust and the scene was chaotic as men and women screamed in grief and blamed the government for a slow rescue operation. People dug at the debris, calling out the names of relatives and family members trapped below.
Slums such as Manshiyet Nasr at the base of the cliffs are built by migrants from the countryside looking for work in Cairo, an overcrowded city of 17 million people that suffers from a severe housing shortage. Buildings on top of the cliffs and below are crudely built and lack basic services, contributing to the instability of the vast plateau.
"The reason the rocks keep falling is because there is no sewage system and their wastewater is eating away at the mountain," Hani Rifaat, a local journalist who has been following the issue, told AP from the site of the disaster.
Sewage could be seen pouring down from residential areas on top of the plateau, prompting fears of another collapse.
Resident Mohammed Hussein said contractors were working to shore up the cliffs, but they couldn't complete their work until the government resettled the community below. The slum is home to half a million people, according to official government figures.
"The contractor who is stabilising the mountain asked the government to resettle everyone at least 50km from the mountain because he didn't want the rocks he was removing to fall on the people," Hussein told AP Television News. "The rocks are soaked with water and so are more brittle and prone to falling."
The rock slide and the slow response comes after a string of other disasters in the country pointing to government neglect and incompetence, including the burning down of parliament in August, the destruction of another Cairo slum by a fire in 2007, and a ferry disaster that claimed 1,000 lives in 2006.
Helmeted rescue workers on the scene appeared to be doing little on Saturday, and hours after the rock slide, no heavy equipment was being used to clear debris. A single bulldozer sat stranded because it couldn't move through the slum's narrow streets, forcing authorities to prepare to demolish some buildings.
In their frustration, police and residents exchanged angry words.
Workers brought in flood lights, indicating the rescue effort would continue into the night.
The government said survivors would be transferred to new housing for the night and given all necessary aid.
"We are following the case step by step and providing the care and comfort for the residents," Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif said in the statement. "We would like to remind people the danger of building informal housing in dangerous areas."
Haidar Baghdadi, the parliamentarian for the region, told Al-Jazeera news channel that buried residents were calling for help from under the rubble using mobile phones.
The representative added that the area was known to be dangerous and the residents were supposed to be resettled to government housing. He also criticised the lack of government emergency response.
Rock slides periodically take place on the edges of the brittle limestone Muqattam hills outside Cairo. In 1994, some 30 people were killed in another rock slide in the same area.
