At least 22 people were killed, including children, and 16 more were injured after two adjacent four-storey residential buildings collapsed on the night of December 9 to 10.

This incident arose in the historic city of Fez in Morocco. The buildings were said to be located in the Al-Mustaqbal neighborhood and were inhabited by eight different families.

Officials shared more about how one of the buildings happened to be hosting a traditional celebration after the birth of a child when this tragedy ensued.

The other building was unoccupied. According to the survivors of this incident, the buildings had shown visible cracking for some time prior to this collapse. One man further interviewed on Television mentioned how rescuers had only retrieved one body while he still waited for his wife and three kids.

Upon collapse, emergency services and civil protection units were seen rushing to this site as the injured were taken to the city’s University Hospital Center, and neighboring buildings had to be evacuated.

Authorities have opened up a judicial and a technical investigation to determine the cause of this disaster. Preliminary reports indicated that the buildings were made in 2006 as part of a slum eradication housing scheme, but so many more structures across Morocco have since then been classified as being at risk of a huge collapse.