Five killed in landslide at Shiite Shrine in Iraq
Rescue workers searched through the rubble of a Shiite Muslim shrine in central Iraq into Sunday night, after a landslide killed at least five people including a child.
After more than 24 hours of digging through collapsed rocks, wood and other debris, "we have found five bodies," civil defence General Abdelrahman Jawdat said.
"That could be the final toll," he added, while digging continued in case there were other victims.
Civil defence spokesman Nawas Sabah Shaker said earlier that between six and eight pilgrims had been reported trapped under the debris of the shrine, known as Qattarat al-Imam Ali, near the city of Karbala.
Jawdat said rescuers had recovered the bodies of two women, a man and a child, and were working to free the corpse of the fifth victim, another woman whom they had located.
Three children have been rescued following this disaster, emergency services said, adding that they were in "good condition" and being monitored in a hospital.
Rescue teams working through the night were able to provide supplies of oxygen, as well as food and water to some of those trapped through gaps in the rubble, state news agency INA said.
Iraqi President Barham Saleh on Twitter called on the "heroic" rescue workers to "mobilise all efforts to save the trapped people".
"We are working hard, with the utmost precision, to reach" those trapped, said Jawdat, director of the civil defence media department.
"Any mistake could lead to further collapses."
