TEHRAN: On Sunday, a top provincial official told the semi-official Tasnim news agency that the death toll in a 10-story commercial building collapse in the southern Iranian city of Abadan had risen nearly 30, with a total of 38 persons reported missing.

On the sidelines of a visit to the event site, Khuzestan Province Governor Sadeq Khalilian told reporters that 29 bodies have been found from the wreckage so far, three of which are unidentified. He stated that search and rescue operations were underway to discover the missing people, and that they would continue until everyone was found.

Authorities are concerned that the building's surviving components, as well as surrounding structures, will fall.
On Sunday, Iran declared a day of national mourning in honour of the victims. The Iranian judiciary's Mizan news agency stated that ten persons had been arrested in connection with the tragedy, in which the building's owner and contractor were killed.

The Metropol building, which was still under construction, was located on a busy roadway in downtown Abadan, surrounded by commercial and medical buildings and offices. Several sections of the building abruptly collapsed, trapping hundreds of individuals beneath the rubble.

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