A faulty air conditioner was to blame for the blaze in Alexandria, officials said
A shopping mall in Alexandria, Egypt was gutted by fire on Saturday, with smoke spewing out of the building and towering over the coastal city. The devastation, which officials blamed on an air conditioning unit, was captured on video.
The blaze began in a recreational area of the City Center Alexandria mall before spreading to other parts of the building, Erem News reported.
Video footage shot from the mall’s parking lot showed the building’s roof on fire, as smoke poured into the sky.
Egypt’s interior ministry added shortly afterwards that the fire had been contained with no loss of life. An examination found that an air conditioning unit on the roof of the building was the source of the blaze, which then spread to a canopy covering one of the entrances.
The governor of Alexandria said two people were hurt as a result of the fire, with one breaking a leg running away and another suffering from smoke inhalation.
The fire broke out less than a week after 41 people, including 18 children, were killed during a blaze at a Coptic church in Cairo. The interior ministry blamed the tragedy on an electrical malfunction, and Christians have blamed supposedly discriminatory regulations for preventing renovation work on churches in the predominantly Muslim country.
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