The death toll from the collapse of a police headquarters building in Angola's capital over the weekend has risen to 24, officials said Monday.
Rescue crews pulled nine bodies from the debris of the six-story building that served as headquarters for police detectives, emergency coordinator Eugenio Laborinho said.
About 180 people, among them civilians in cells, are believed to have been in the building when it crumbled before dawn Saturday. Officials said the dead included 13 men, 10 women and a baby. Fifteen bodies were retrieved Sunday.
"It's very difficult to get into the debris. It's shifting all the time," Laborinho told state radio.
Crews using a crane, bulldozers and sniffer dogs have rescued 145 people. Most of those inside were being held by police investigating criminal activities. The baby was believed to have been with its mother, who was under arrest.
The government says it has opened an official inquiry to find out why the building collapsed.
"We are discounting any external cause" for the collapse, Interior Minister Leal Monteiro Ngongo said. "It's more likely a structural problem."
The building was about 30 years old, officials said. Many buildings in the Angolan capital are in a poor state of repair due to the Southwest African country's two-decade civil war, which ended in 2002.
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