18 injured as ceiling of shopping centre collapses

By Joey Aguilar/Staff Reporter

Eighteen people were injured after a section of the interior ceiling of Ramez shopping centre near the Ramada signals on Salwa road collapsed.

A source at the Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) said all the victims were brought immediately to the Hamad General Hospital for treatment and no casualty had been reported .

This was also confirmed by Qatar’s Ministry of Interior on its Twitter page. The posting said: “Partial collapse of the roof inside a supermarket on Salwa Road, today. Civil Defense evacuated store without serious injury or death.”

An employee of a nearby establishment told Gulf Times that he saw 12 to 15 people running from Ramez Marketing Co. towards the Al Maha Centre at around 11:30am.

He said police were the first to respond to the incident, blocking the entry to the shopping complex and preventing passersby from crowding the area. All shoppers and staff at Ramez were asked to immediately leave the building.

HMC ambulances, Civil Defence, and Qatar’s Search and Rescue teams also responded quickly to help the injured persons, according to the employee.

“As far as I know Ramez officials had a plan to move. They wanted to leave the current old building and transfer their operations to a new location in Abu Hamour seven months ago, ” he said. “I am not sure what happened next,” he added.

Shops and other business establishments at nearby Al Maha Centre such as Jarir Bookstore, Fifty One East, and Darwish Holdings, which are only a few metres away from Ramez, were forced to down shutters after electricity was cut off to some of the buildings in the area, a number of security guards said.

One of the guards added he thought there was a fire after noticing people running away from the affected outlet. "A few minutes later, a number of rescue trucks were seen deployed to the area."

The staff of another shop in the vicinity said Ramez used to receive a good number of visitors during weekends and there could have been many shoppers at the store when the ceiling came crashing down .