Beirut: At least 26 people were killed when an old six-storey building in the Lebanese capital collapsed, officials said on Tuesday, with more people still trapped under the rubble.

"Until now, 26 bodies have been recovered and we believe there are more buried under the building that collapsed Sunday evening," Red Cross official Georges Kettaneh said.
A dozen people were also injured, none of them seriously. Civil defence chief General Raymond Khattar told AFP the bodies recovered by rescuers who worked through Sunday night and Monday included those of seven Lebanese, six Sudanese, two Filipinos and two Egyptians. Among the dead was a 15-year-old Lebanese girl, and those hurt included her grandmother as well as a 73-year-old Lebanese man, at least two Sudanese, an Egyptian and a Filipina.
The building housed some 50 people, many of them labourers from Sudan and Egypt, Khattar said, adding that at least eight people were known to have escaped as the building came down.
A Syrian labourer at a nearby building site said debris started falling from the building in the early evening before the entire block came crashing down. Interior Minister Marwan Charbel, who visited the site on Sunday night with President Michel Sleiman, told reporters the building`s owner had been detained for questioning and a probe was under way.
The government announced it would grant compensation of 30 million Lebanese pounds (20,000 dollars, 15,750 euros) to the family of each victim as well as families who had been living in the collapsed building.
PTI