Multiple deaths as building collapses in war-torn Syria's Aleppo

A building collapsed in a neighbourhood in Syria’s northern city of Aleppo early Sunday, killing at least 16 people, including one child, regime media have reported.

The five-storey building housing about 30 people in the Sheikh Maksoud neighbourhood collapsed overnight, according to the reports. 

Water leakages had weakened the structure's foundation, they said.

Dozens of firefighters, first responders, and residents covered in debris and dust were searching through the rubble for the remaining residents with drills and a bulldozer.

Some relatives of the tenants waited anxiously nearby, while others mourned at the entrance of a nearby hospital as the bodies arrived in ambulances and on the back of trucks.

Hawar News initially reported that seven people were killed and three were injured, two of them critically.

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Aleppo is Syria’s largest city and was once its commercial centre.

Although the Syrian government under President Bashar al Assad has retaken Aleppo from armed opposition groups, Sheikh Maksoud is among some neighborhoods under the control of rebel forces.

Nearly half a million people have been killed in Syria's conflict which began in 2011 and displaced about half of the country's pre-war population.

Many of those forced from their homes had to move into buildings that are structurally unsound, resulting in relatively frequent collapses.

Last September, a building collapse in the Ferdaws neighbourhood of Aleppo killed 10 people, including three children.

A war-damaged block of flats also crumbled in the city in February 2019, leaving 11 people dead with four children among them.

READ MORE: Deaths as building collapses in Syria's Aleppo