At least nine people have been killed and several others wounded after a four-storey apartment building collapsed in Fez, Morocco's third-largest city, located roughly 200 kilometres east of the capital Rabat. Rescue workers and bystanders were seen sifting through rubble in search of survivors, and authorities confirmed that a formal investigation has been opened to determine the cause of the collapse, which occurred overnight. The death toll was revised upward after prosecutors released an updated preliminary count; earlier reports from state broadcaster 2M had initially put the figure at eleven before correcting the figure downward, and local authorities had also reported four dead before the latest tally emerged.

Neighbouring buildings were evacuated as a precaution against further collapses, and the injured were transferred to hospital. Local media reported that the building had already been identified as structurally unsafe and that residents had previously been asked to leave — a detail that is likely to intensify scrutiny of how such warnings are enforced. Authorities have launched an investigation into the precise cause of the collapse.

The incident is the latest in a pattern of building failures that has troubled Morocco in recent months. In December last year, two residential buildings in Fez collapsed, killing at least 22 people and injuring 16 others. The country has a well-documented problem with unsafe housing stock: Morocco's Secretary of State for Housing stated last year that approximately 38,800 buildings across the country had been classified as at risk of collapse. Older tragedies underscore the scale of the issue — in 2010, a minaret collapsed in Meknes, a city some 60 kilometres west of Fez, killing 41 people.

Fez, the former imperial capital and one of the world's oldest continuously inhabited cities, is home to a densely built medina, or old city, where many structures date back centuries and where maintenance and oversight can be particularly challenging. The repeated collapses are raising urgent questions about building safety enforcement, the pace of urban renovation programmes, and the protection of residents who remain in structures already flagged as dangerous.