Tel Aviv is considered to be the commercial capitol of Israel and hosts quite a few people within its city limits. Earlier today (Sept 5), a multi-floor underground car park in Tel Aviv’s Ramat Hahayal neighborhood collapsed, killing two people and trapping five more.

According to Yahoo News, the construction site where the accident occurred was “filled with twisted metal, dirt and rubble after the collapse.” There is no news yet on what caused the collapse.

“It was only construction workers. There weren’t any other people. I provided medical care to some of the injured people… They say some movement shook the building,” said Avi Marcus, a medic with the United Hatzalah rescue service.

Several medical teams waited at the edge of the rubble, taking turns looking for victims and survivors. Police confirmed “at least two killed and 23 wounded.” 

The army later released a statement saying they had “extracted five citizens from the building.”

“The forces are operating to extract five additional trapped civilians,” it said, adding that more than 300 soldiers from the search-and-rescue battalion were taking part in the operation.

While the true cause of this collapse is still unknown, a member of the United Hatzalah rescue team said the cause appeared to be “the roof of a parking garage had collapsed in the building site.” The civilians who have been rescued from the site claim they felt a tremor before the structure started to crumble.

At the time of the collapse, the project was about half finished.

Ramat Hahayal is an upscale neighborhood within Tel Aviv and hosts “a number of high-tech companies” in the city of more than 400,000 people.

Further study by the Haaretz newspaper in May found that “480 people were killed in construction accidents between 2000 and 2015.” 

This latest accident has prompted the economy ministry to enforce stricter construction industry regulations in an effort to decrease casualties and future structure collapse.