Seven people have been killed after a landslide caused a partial collapse of a Shiite shrine in southern Iraq, government officials said.
A search and rescue operation was under way on Sunday, with six people rescued after the collapse on Saturday.
Interior Ministry spokesman Maj Gen Khalid Al Muhanna told The National earlier that three people rescued were in good condition.
Three more were rescued later on Sunday.
“We believe that there are still at least six others under the rubble,” Maj Gen Al Muhanna said on Sunday.
“The operation is still going on and the elite rescue team has arrived from Baghdad, as well as others from nearby provinces.
“The hardship we are facing is that the place is narrow, as rocky hills flank the shrine from three sides, leaving only narrow access.”
By Sunday afternoon, the Civil Defence said three bodies had been pulled from the rubble.
Teams worked through the night under floodlights and were able to provide supplies of oxygen, as well as food and water, to people trapped through gaps in the rubble, the Civil Defence said in a statement carried by the Iraqi News Agency.
The rocks and sand began to slide because of the "saturation of the earthen embankment adjacent to the shrine" due to humidity, it said.
The shrine is in the desert about 25 kilometres west of the city of Karbala. This is home to the gold-domed shrines of the Prophet Mohammed’s grandsons Imam Hussein bin Ali and his brother Abbas.
Iraqi President Barham Salih on Twitter called on the "heroic" rescue workers to "mobilise all efforts to save the trapped people".
For Shiites, the site is a revered one. They say that when the fourth Caliph Imam Ali, the Prophet Mohammed’s cousin and son-in-law, was on his way to the Battle of Siffin in 657 AD (37 Hijri) against Muawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan, the rebellious governor of Syria, his army was thirsty so he removed a huge and heavy rock to reveal a water spring.
The place is locally known as Qattarat ('droplet') Imam Ali, in which water drips down in a small pool under a steep rocky hill.
In recent years, the site has been developed and a shrine with a green dome built next to it, attracting pious Shiites from Iraq and beyond.
The biog
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Email sent to Uber team from chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi
From: Dara
To: Team@
Date: March 25, 2019 at 11:45pm PT
Subj: Accelerating in the Middle East
Five years ago, Uber launched in the Middle East. It was the start of an incredible journey, with millions of riders and drivers finding new ways to move and work in a dynamic region that’s become so important to Uber. Now Pakistan is one of our fastest-growing markets in the world, women are driving with Uber across Saudi Arabia, and we chose Cairo to launch our first Uber Bus product late last year.
Today we are taking the next step in this journey—well, it’s more like a leap, and a big one: in a few minutes, we’ll announce that we’ve agreed to acquire Careem. Importantly, we intend to operate Careem independently, under the leadership of co-founder and current CEO Mudassir Sheikha. I’ve gotten to know both co-founders, Mudassir and Magnus Olsson, and what they have built is truly extraordinary. They are first-class entrepreneurs who share our platform vision and, like us, have launched a wide range of products—from digital payments to food delivery—to serve consumers.
I expect many of you will ask how we arrived at this structure, meaning allowing Careem to maintain an independent brand and operate separately. After careful consideration, we decided that this framework has the advantage of letting us build new products and try new ideas across not one, but two, strong brands, with strong operators within each. Over time, by integrating parts of our networks, we can operate more efficiently, achieve even lower wait times, expand new products like high-capacity vehicles and payments, and quicken the already remarkable pace of innovation in the region.
This acquisition is subject to regulatory approval in various countries, which we don’t expect before Q1 2020. Until then, nothing changes. And since both companies will continue to largely operate separately after the acquisition, very little will change in either teams’ day-to-day operations post-close. Today’s news is a testament to the incredible business our team has worked so hard to build.
It’s a great day for the Middle East, for the region’s thriving tech sector, for Careem, and for Uber.
Uber on,
Dara
