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Picture Courtesy: (IOL/ Robin-Lee Francke) The mission to search and rescue continues at the collapsed apartment building in George.
(The Post News)– The number of fatalities following the collapse of the multi-story apartment building on Monday afternoon in George, Western Cape, has increased after a rescued patient died in the hospital and three more bodies were recovered from the construction site. This raises the number of fatalities to 12.
It has been five days since the search and rescue mission began operations at the site of the collapsed building. The Western Cape government said that the search and rescue team has been working tirelessly on site, with more than 600 emergency and disaster officials on the scene since the building collapsed. “Operations will continue for as long as necessary, with all the required resources in place to ensure that they proceed seamlessly,” said the Western Cape government.
There have been allegations of poor workmanship at the site, and the public is demanding answers from Neotrend Group, the company that was in charge of developing the building. It is alleged that the company has since vanished and deactivated its Facebook and LinkedIn accounts.The Department of Employment and Labour representative, together with its Minister, visited the construction site on Thursday afternoon, where they briefed the media.
According to the department’s spokesperson, David Esau, the department’s attempts to reach the Neotrend Group have since been unsuccessful. Esau said that when they went to the developer’s offices, it was locked, so they issued a subpoena, and there has been no response from the developers.
Employment and Labour Minister Thulani Nxesi confirmed that after the police have finished their work on the site and have handed over the case to his department, his department will then launch its investigation, and this is to allow the police to work with no interruptions.
Nxesi added that as different departments within different levels of government, they have agreed to play their different statutory roles, but they will do so while supporting each other because it is not a competition. He emphasized that politics is not involved in this matter; even though it is election time, they will not play politics with people’s lives, and any party within or outside the government that wishes to have its own investigation is allowed to do so.
According to Nxesi, the MEC told them that the families of victims would like to see and communicate with the employer and that they would like for the employer to be present on the scene like the government and other organizations have been. “It will be good that the employer, wherever he is, or the owners, whoever they are, are able to come and just talk to the families,” he said.
The search and rescue team continued working overnight, and on Friday morning, the municipality of George confirmed that a hospitalized patient in a critical condition was pronounced dead. As things stand, 41 workers remain unaccounted for, 15 are in critical conditions, 12 have died, six sustained life-threatening injuries, and seven sustained minor injuries.
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