Death Toll Climbs Past Two Dozen in Collapse of a Nine-Story Building Under Construction in the Philippines

The death toll from the collapse of a nine-story building under construction in the central Philippines has climbed past two dozen, as rescue crews shifted from a frantic search for survivors to the grim work of recovering bodies from the rubble. By early June, officials confirmed at least 27 people had died in the disaster in Angeles City, a former U.S. air base community in Pampanga province north of Manila.

The mixed-use structure, located in Barangay Balibago and under construction since 2020, collapsed at roughly 2:30 a.m. on May 24 as a fierce thunderstorm lashed the area. The building was in its finishing stages, and an estimated 30 to 40 construction workers were sleeping inside at the time, along with relatives of some workers who had been living at the site. The pre-dawn timing meant most of those trapped never had a chance to escape.

For days, more than 100 police officers and government personnel sifted through the unstable debris using hands, sniffer dogs and heavy equipment, working under constant fear of secondary collapses. Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon, who visited the site, said early in the operation that rescuers had detected "some signs of life" and "voices that are being heard," but cautioned that crews were "moving with extreme caution" through the precarious mound of concrete and steel.

Among the dead were an infant and another child, a detail that underscored how entire families had been caught in the disaster. The collapse also damaged an adjacent hotel, where a 65-year-old Malaysian tourist with a disability was killed and another person injured when debris struck their lodging. The toll rose steadily over the following days as more bodies were pulled from the wreckage and hopes for additional survivors faded.

Authorities have launched multiple investigations into what caused the structure to give way, with the Angeles City government, the Department of Public Works and Highways and the Philippine National Police all examining the construction. Questions have centered on the building's permits, engineering and the safety conditions for the workers housed on-site. The owner and contractor of the project, who initially could not be located, later surfaced as scrutiny intensified. The catastrophe has reignited longstanding concerns about lax enforcement of building codes and worker-safety rules on Philippine construction sites, where laborers are frequently housed in the very structures they are racing to complete. Labor advocates have demanded accountability for the developers and a full accounting of how many people were living on the property, warning that the final toll could still rise as crews comb the last sections of the wreckage. Local officials, meanwhile, have promised compensation for the victims' families and a review of every active high-rise project in the city, an acknowledgment that the disaster exposed gaps that went far beyond a single building site.