Police detain contractors in deadly building collapse

KONYA, Turkey -- Police detained two contractors Wednesday following the collapse of an apartment building that killed at least 27 people and left dozens missing. Rescuers said hopes were fading of finding more survivors. Authorities said 31 survivors had been pulled out of the rubble since the sudden collapse of the 11-story apartment building on Monday evening. Between 40 and 100 people were believed inside when the building crumbled, officials said. Rescue teams were working around the clock but acknowledged that chances of finding more survivors were slim. The last survivor was rescued Tuesday evening.

Top officials, including the prime minister, blamed shoddy construction for the disaster and police were investigating whether the contractors ignored building codes.

Police detained two of the building's contractors, Konya Gov. Ahmet Kayhan said. The Anatolia news agency reported that police were searching for a third. It wasn't clear what charges, if any, they could face.

Angry relatives at the site demanded punishment for the contractors.

Poor construction "led to the death of lots of people," said Abdulbaki Aycicek, who was waiting for news about eight missing family members, including his pregnant sister-in-law.

Officials at the scene said 27 bodies had been found and the death toll was expected to rise with dozens of people still missing. Several rescue teams began leaving the site as bulldozers and cranes were used to comb through the wreckage.

Mustafa Aycan fought back tears as he sat on a wooden plank from the debris as four members of his family who lived on the second floor of the building were missing.

"I'm hoping that that they're in a crevice inside the building. That's our only hope," he said as he and others huddled around a fire to keep warm.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan blamed the collapse on poor construction and called for tougher building codes.

"This is entirely a technical failure. As long as the sanctions for these type of things aren't heavy, citizens will pay the price with their life," Erdogan said Tuesday. "Nobody has that right. We won't allow it."

Poor construction also was blamed for many of the 17,000 deaths in a 1999 earthquake and for the collapse in May of a dormitory in eastern Turkey during a magnitude 6.4-earthquake, which killed 84 students.

The floors of the apartment building collapsed on top of each other, reducing the 11-story building to a heap of concrete slabs and twisted metal.

Some 140 people lived in the building's 37 apartments, officials said, but it was unclear how many people were inside at the time. Officials said at least 18 residents were not in the building, but others may have had visitors when the tragedy occurred.