Students at the faculty of Engineering in Alexandria University created a group on Facebook called "The Mokattam Catastrophe to be repeated in the faculty of Engineering." The student's cry follows a tragedy in Doweika, a Cairo slum, where rocks came tumbling on homes, killing and maiming scores of poor people. In the description of the group the students wrote:
حنموت تحت الانقاض المبنى بعد ما كان ايل للسقوط بس دلوقتى مال و العواميد من كتر الحمل شرخت كل العاملين فى المبنى مرعوبين المشكله بقى لما الدراسه تبدا و الحمل يكتر يا ترى ايه الى حيحصل و المبنى بيدخل فيه اكتر من 7000 بنى ادم كل يوم المشكله كمان حتى لو المبنى وقع و مفيهوش حد دا فيه معامل ب ملايين و كتب نادرة كل دا حيتعوض ازاى
We will be buried under the rubble and debris. The old building has always been liable to collapse but now it is tilted. The pillars are clearly cracked. All the workers in the building are terrified. Soon the university will open its doors and more than 7,000 students will set foot in that derelict building. The best case scenario is that the building will collapse when it's empty and we will lose millions of pounds worth of laboratories and rare books. And how will we ever compensate all that?
The Facebook group has so far attracted 1,144 members – and photographs of the building are available here.
