Residents of north Lebanon city lose neighbours, livelihoods in building collapse

Mardash, 54, said he shut the small ground-floor store where he worked for more than three decades and went to his nearby home shortly before the disaster on Sunday afternoon. "Our neighbours and loved ones died... people lost their livelihoods," said the father of four, who has no other income. "We felt the building's situation wasn't good and we contacted the municipality but got no response," he told AFP. Only eight people were pulled out alive after the building, home to 12 apartments, collapsed in the Bab al-Tabbaneh neighbourhood.