A court in Iran has indicted 20 people for their responsibility in the collapse of a tower building that killed 43 people in May in the southwestern city of Abadan.
The collapse of the partially finished 10-story Metropol building on May 23 sparked angry protests in solidarity with the families of the dead and prompted accusations of government negligence and endemic corruption.
Deputy Attorney General Gholam Abbas Turki said on July 21 that the Abadan city administration held a 4.5 percent participation in the Metropol project and bore a large part of the responsibility for the accident since its involvement in the construction led to the neglect of the municipality's "supervisory duty."
Turki also said the city administration and the technical supervisors of the construction work were guilty of "numerous shortcomings and faults."
In recent years there have been several cases of building collapse in Iran. Experts largely attribute the incidents to a disregard for safety standards and corruption in urban management.
In 2017, 20 people were killed, including 16 firefighters, in a fire and then the collapse of the Plasco building in the capital city of Tehran.
