Iranians continue to vent their anger in southwestern Iran as the death toll in the collapse of a tower in the city of Abadan rose to 31 after the bodies of two more victims were found in the rubble.
The state news agency IRNA said on May 30 that the two bodies were found during recovery work, and that another body has been located but is yet to be pulled from the debris.
Officials have said more than 30 people remain unaccounted for in the accident.
The collapse of a large section of the 10-story Metropol building that was under construction was one of Iran’s deadliest such disasters in years.
The May 23 accident has sparked a week of protests in the city as the country reels from unrest over rising food prices and other economic issues amid the harsh sanctions imposed by the United States over Iran’s nuclear program.
An official sent by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on May 29 was shouted down and booed by protesters, who called the country’s leadership “shameless.”
The Tehran-based daily newspaper Hamshahri and the semiofficial Fars news agency said the protesters attacked the platform where state TV had set up its camera, cutting off its broadcast.
Abadan, in Iran’s oil-rich Khuzestan Province, is home to Iran’s Arab minority, who long have complained about being treated as second-class citizens in the country.
Source » rferl