Iran authorities put building collapse death toll at 30

By Ahmed al-Masri

TEHRAN (AA) - As many as 30 people -- including a number of firefighters -- may have been killed in yesterday’s building collapse in central Tehran, according to Iranian officials.

On Thursday morning, a massive fire broke out in the 17-floor Plasco Tower, one of central Tehran’s best-known commercial buildings.

Not long afterward, the building collapsed, killing an as-yet-undetermined number of people, including firefighters who had been trying to extinguish the blaze.

According to subsequent reports in the Iranian media, material losses caused by the building collapse have been estimated at a whopping $440 million.

On Friday, firefighters and rescue teams continued to pull survivors out from under the rubble of the collapsed building.

Iran’s official IRNA press agency quoted Ali Fazeli, the head of Iran’s Chamber of Craftsmen, as saying the fate of several shop-owners and employees -- who had been working in the building when it collapsed -- remained unknown until now.

Mojtaba Khaledi, a spokesman for Iran's emergency services department, for his part, put the number of those injured by the building collapse at 84.

Khaledi went on to note that, according to assessments by Tehran’s official firefighting authority, between 25 and 30 firefighters still remained unaccounted for.