City alas in ruins around each end (5)
I believe the answer is:
lhasa
'city' is the definition.
(Lhasa is an example)
'alas in ruins around each end' is the wordplay.
'in ruins' indicates anagramming the letters.
'around' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'end' indicates one should take the final letters.
The last letter of 'each' is 'h'.
'alas' is an anagram of 'lasa'.
'lasa' going around 'h' is 'LHASA'.
(Other definitions for lhasa that I've seen before include "Asian capital" , "Tibetan dog breed" , "foreign capital" , "The Forbidden City in Tibet" , "Tibetan capital" .)