(George) Rescuers redoubled their efforts on Tuesday to find dozens of workers trapped in the rubble of a building under construction which collapsed the day before in George, on the South African coast, killing seven people, according to the latest assessment from the authorities.
By evening, 33 people had been pulled out of the rubble, seven of whom died from their injuries, most of the others being hospitalized.
Rescuers were still searching for 42 workers, including 11 with whom contact was established during the day.
“They have been down there for more than 24 hours now, that’s already a long time,” declared the head of the provincial government Alan Winde, during a press briefing in the afternoon, recalling that the international standard for a rescue operation extends over three days.
“We are in contact with eleven people,” Colin Deiner, head of rescue operations, said earlier, including “four who are stuck in a basement.”
Some were able to call to report. “They were asked to regularly turn off their cell phones to conserve battery power,” Winde said.
Those who were able to report, via their mobile phones, or by shouting and tapping to make noise, were identified on three sites deemed priority, said Mr. Deiner. But “we don’t know how many people are” precisely in each of them.
It is a “long and complex operation”, requiring an “in-depth search with dogs”, he told AFP. He said it took rescuers 17 hours to extract one of the trapped people after his initial location.
As night fell, an AFP correspondent saw a survivor pulled from the rubble, amid cheers. Then a body removed, wrapped in a blanket.
Once the people have been located, “we will begin to destratify” the rubble, that is to say clear floor by floor, because “there could still be survivors” underneath, explained Mr. Deiner.
Rescuers must “cut into the layers of concrete” which weigh tons “and lift them,” recalled Mr. Winde, a long and delicate job.
Open investigation
President Cyril Ramaphosa offered “his deepest condolences” to the loved ones of those who died and “his thoughts” to the families of workers still trapped.
“A work team of 75 people was on the site at the time of the collapse” on Monday of this residential building under construction, said the spokesperson for the municipality, Chantel Edwards.
The construction companies involved on the site worked with the authorities to establish a precise list of missing people, specifies the city.
The five-story building, including an underground parking lot, collapsed for reasons still undetermined. It was to contain 42 apartments, from studios to three-room apartments. Its plans were approved by the town hall in July 2023.
A police investigation was opened.
Images of the disaster show a flattened construction site around which numerous emergency services are positioned. The roof of the building remains visible, shaky, above a pile of rubble.
The site was isolated by a security perimeter. Some 200 rescuers, helped by backhoes and excavators, as well as teams of sniffer dogs, are hard at work in this race against time.
An operational post coordinates the various responders on site, coming from several surrounding towns and even from Cape Town, more than 400 km west of the disaster.
Invited to meet at the town hall, near the collapsed building, families and loved ones, men, women and children sang and prayed there while waiting for news, noted an AFP correspondent.
George is a medium-sized town of around 160,000 inhabitants, located near the very touristy Garden Route, which runs along the south coast of the country.
Its town hall is run by the country’s leading opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), which also governs the Western Cape province.