Ashrafiyeh in Mourning as Funerals Held for Victims of Building Collapse

Shops in Ashrafiyeh shut down until 3:00 pm Wednesday as the funeral processions for several people killed in the building collapse in the Fassouh neighborhood went underway.

The funeral procession for 15-year-old Anne Marie Abdul Karim took place at Saint Mary’s church in Ashrafiyeh.

Her coffin stopped at her school in her neighborhood as weeping students bade her farewell.

Anne Marie has a twin sister. Antonella Abdul Karim, who survived the collapse, told reporters on Monday that she was asleep when the incident happened.

"I was asleep, I woke up and felt everything shaking and then something fell on me and I started screaming," said Antonella.

Twenty seven people were killed and 12 others injured when the six-storey building collapsed on Sunday evening, burying residents, many of them foreign laborers.

Another tragedy struck the Naim family when the bodies of four of its members were recovered from the rubble of the building on Monday afternoon.

Tanios Naim and his three sons Jihad, Charbel and Farhat were going to be laid to rest in their hometown in Jezzine district later Wednesday.

Their funeral procession was held at noon at the Sacred Heart Church in the Beirut neighborhood of Badaro.

The young men were seeking to carry their sick father out of their apartment when the building collapsed, their sister Gladiss had told reporters.

Gladiss asked the mourners after the procession to pray for her and her mother so that they could overcome their grief.