LEBANESE CIVIL DEFENCE SEARCH OVER A COLLAPSE BUILDING, 1999-02-20 (photo)

Lebanese civil defence workers pulls wreckage from a collapsed building in the town of Kahhaleh February 20. At least five people were killed and three injured when a building on the Beirut-Damascus highway collapsed on Saturday. Witnesses said the four-storey building, home to mostly Syrian workers, blocked the highway when it collapsed. Red Cross workers sent five bodies to nearby hospitals and said they expected to pull out more people from the rubble which fell on passing cars and pedestrians. The reason for the accident was not immediately known but a woman who lived nearby said she saw workers examining and repairing the support columns of the building earlier in the afternoon. JS/JDP