One of the oldest film studios in the Arab world was ravaged on the night of Friday March 15 to Saturday March 16 by a huge fire in Cairo, without causing any casualties, according to a journalist from Agence France-Presse (AFP) and security sources.
The fire devastated the Al-Ahram studio, built in 1944, in the Giza region, west of the capital, and then spread to three neighboring buildings which were evacuated before being engulfed in flames .
Saturday morning, the residents of these buildings were still sleeping on the ground in the surrounding streets, according to the AFP correspondent.
Security sources clarified that the fire did not cause any casualties, however reporting “minor cases of choking who were rescued at the scene”.
A 27,000 square meter studio
According to local media, the fire broke out after the filming of a soap opera broadcast during Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting which began on Monday and during which television enjoys its biggest audiences in Egypt and the Arab world. .
The Al-Ahram studio covers 27,000 square meters and includes three film sets, a projection room and an editing room.
In the 1950s, Egypt was the world’s third largest film producer. Today, it claims three quarters of film production in the Arab world. This dropped to twenty-one films in 2022, while the country has been going through the worst economic crisis in its history in recent years.