PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti (CMC) — At least four people were killed and several others injured when a building collapsed in the capital earlier this week, Haitian authorities have confirmed.

They said the dead and injured were among several people who were seeking scrap materials, including rebar for resale, when the internal structures of the four-storey building collapsed.

They said the accident occurred on Wednesday at a former soft drink production plant abandoned for years and heavily damaged by the earthquake of January 2010 that killed thousands of people.

“Four bodies were removed from the rubble and we transported four other individuals seriously injured at the General Hospital of Port-au-Prince,” the office of the coordinator of Civil Protection stated.

The Mayor of Port-au-Prince Youri Chevry, who visited the area said all the victims were inside the building at the time of the accident.

Chevry, expressed his regret at the incident and announced a demolition campaign in the capital, of all buildings severely damaged by the 2010 earthquake to avoid the repetition of such an accident.

Guillaume Albert Moléon, the spokesman for the Ministry of Interior, said the old plant was one of the buildings in the capital “being demolished”.