Egypt: Tragedy in Doweiqa · Global Voices
Tarek Amr

Egyptian bloggers are writing about the Doweiqa disaster, where more than 30 people were killed due to a rock slide. Could this incident have been avoided? And why does tragedy always hurt the most vulnerable of people?
Zeinobia wrote about the accident here:
Ok forget about Ramadan hit TV Soap Operas and “Hisham and Susan” , this is much more important …
Today Egypt woke up on a catastrophic disaster that could have avoided if there had been a proactive regime that put the safety of its citizens regardless of their social status in its top priority.
According to news coverage over the hour about 17 persons were killed by a rockslide in Doweiqa shanty town at Manshiyat Nasser, east of central Cairo. The rockslide source is the famous Mokattam Hill.
Massive boulders according to the shocking footage Al Jazeera that has just aired few minutes ago destroyed complete buildings.
The official news channel ,Nile news is saying that 17 persons were killed, 40 were transferred to the hospitals and 30 houses were damaged. Al Jazeera is speaking about no less than 500 persons are currently trapped under the wreckage and some of them are alive and called for help through their mobile phones.
El Nadaha also wrote here wondering why does harm keep haunting and hurting poor people:
A certain thought kept aching my heart all day after hearing the very sad and tragic news about the Natural Disaster that happened in Cairo…Why does harm keep haunting hurt people? Why the poor become poorer, more ill, loose loved ones and keep struggling all the time?
While, the Big old Bad wolves that are eating our country are becoming chubbier, hungrier and more cruel?
I'm not opposing destiny as I know that this is “Qadaa Allah Wa Qadaroh” (God's will)
I'm just so sad that the small neighborhood where very very needy and poor people chose to build small huts made of shattered bricks and tin ceilings had to suffer a Rock slide from the near by Hill…I'm Imaging them fasting…sleeping or what ever when those Rocks smashed their little poor houses over their heads…Lots of deaths and Injuries…more misery have landed over Aldwe2a…the already miserable neighborhood!
Also Mohamed El Gohary left the following comment on El Nadaha's post:
This is majorly man-made actually. People there for years were complaining about water leaking, since this area is mainly limestone, and limestone changes drastically when reaction with water as you may know. There are many decisions issued for like 5 years ago to treat this situation and nothing was done.
And finally Abdul Rahman wrote about the accident in his blog [Ar], calling it: “The rock that committed suicide.”