IMG 20240509 WA0013
Picture Courtesy: (SABC News/ WhatsApp channel) the collapsed multi-story apartment in George.
( The Post News)– Another body has been retrieved by the search and rescue team at the collapsed multi-story apartment building in George, Western Cape. The building collapsed on Monday afternoon, and emergency personnel have been on site since then, trying to rescue workers that were trapped when the building collapsed. On Wednesday afternoon, 36 workers had been retrieved, and 39 were still unaccounted for.
The spokesperson of George Municipality, Chantel Edwards-Klose, said that out of the 36 rescued workers, seven were pronounced dead, 16 were in critical conditions, six were suffering from potentially fatal injuries, seven sustained minor injuries, and 39 were still unaccounted for. Search and rescue continued, with more than 200 emergency personnel on site. It is expected that the death toll will continue to rise after the Western Cape Disaster Head, Colin Deiner, confirmed that there were bodies that could not be reached.
Deiner explained that they have located some bodies of the trapped workers, but they have not yet recovered them because they were deeply trapped, and the rescue team’s focus is to search for and rescue those who are still alive first. He further said that moving forward was not going to be easy as it was the third day of trying to rescue those who remain trapped, but there is still hope because the rescuers have not lost focus; they know what they are doing and understand how to work around this kind of collapse. “It is construction workers.
We do not have the elderly or children, which has been a great plus. I don’t think there’s ever been so many people rescued on a collapse site that I am aware of in this country,” said Deiner. Churches, community members, businesses, and random individuals have come out to help the search and rescue team, and the Premier of the Western Cape, Alan Winde, extended thanks to them.
According to a construction worker, Patrick Maseko, who worked on the building and was not on site because Monday was his day off, there was a parking lot underneath the building, which had pillars that were not strong enough to support the building as they were far apart instead of being closer to each other.Maseko claimed that they made the pillars far apart to reserve more parking space and emphasized that the pillars could not support the building because it was a large building.
He also suggested that the number of people on site was more than 70. On the evening of Wednesday, George Municipality confirmed that a body had been retrieved, raising the death toll to eight and the number of rescued workers to 36. According to the George Municipality, after they interviewed the contractors, it was revealed that the number of workers on site was 81 and not 70 as previously reported.
Edwards-Klose said that emergency personnel have been working overnight. She said that the total number of people on site when the building collapsed was 81, and 44 remain trapped, while out of the 37 that were rescued, eight were pronounced dead.
There have been safety concerns on site, and they have led to a slowdown in the search and rescue process. Deiner said they have gotten rid of most of the top floor, and the dogs have indicated that there could be workers who are still alive, but they have not gone deep enough to be able to locate them.
He added that as long as they still believe that they are people who could still be alive, it remains a search and rescue mission. The search and rescue team is working around 2:00 p.m. to decide whether they will continue on the search and rescue mission or a mission to recover bodies.
About the Author
