Cairo telecom building fire kills 4 and injures 26
[July 08, 2025]
By FATMA
KHALED and AMR NABIL
CAIRO (AP)
— Egyptian officials said Tuesday a fire that engulfed a main telecom
company building in downtown Cairo the day before left four people dead
and over two dozen injured.
The blaze, which broke out at the landmark 10-story Telecom Egypt
building and lasted for hours, began in one of the halls on the floor
housing telecom operators and spread to other floors due to its
intensity, authorities said. |
Fire fighters battle flames for the second day after a fire engulfed the
main telecom company building in Cairo, Egypt, Tuesday, July 8, 2025,
leaving four employees dead and 26 people injured and prompting a
temporary outage of internet and mobile phone services, officials said.
(AP Photo/Amr Nabil) |
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The four dead were company employees who had been inside the
burning building, according to their workers’ union.
Hossam Abdel Ghaffar, the health ministry spokesperson, told The
Associated Press over the phone the number of the injured
increased from 14 to 26, including those who suffered from smoke
suffocation. All were hospitalized and some have been
discharged, he said.
By Tuesday morning, the upper part of the building was charred,
and firefighters were still spraying water as smoke billowed
from the top floors, though the massive flames had been
contained, according to an AP photographer on site.
The blaze prompted a temporary outage of internet and mobile
phone services. NetBlocks, a global internet monitor, wrote
Monday on X that network data show national connectivity was at
62% of ordinary levels.
The outage also disrupted air traffic, but the civil aviation
ministry said early Tuesday all halted flights have taken off.
The Egyptian Stock Exchange halted trading on Tuesday due to
widespread disruption impacting the efficiency of the trading
system.
The minister of communications, Amr Talaat, said in a statement
that all communications services will gradually be fully
restored within 24 hours and that they were transferred to more
than one switchboard to operate as an alternative network
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