South African authorities are racing against time to try to save 44 construction workers trapped under the rubble of a collapsed building, a situation where hope is dwindling by the day.
The rescue work promises to be titanic, requiring the movement of thousands of tonnes of concrete using heavy machinery to find possible survivors. The death toll rose to nine following the death of a seriously injured worker in hospital.
Despite the rescue of 28 workers from the site, 21 of them were in critical condition or with life-threatening injuries following Monday’s collapse of the five-story apartment complex under construction.
Fearing the final death toll could exceed 50, authorities in the town of George on South Africa’s southern coast said large amounts of earth-moving equipment had arrived and rescue teams were working to clear gigantic slabs of concrete and debris to reach deeper into the rubble.
Although this is still a rescue operation and not a recovery, no survivors have been located or extracted since Wednesday.
“Despite the arrival of large machinery, rescue techniques will still be carried out meticulously and sensitively by the highly trained and experienced disaster management team,” the city said in a statement.
The number of missing people was revised upwards from 38 to 44 after it was determined that there were more construction workers at the site than previously estimated. New information provided by the construction company showed that there were 81 workers at the time of the building collapse, not 75 as initially reported by authorities.
More than 600 people are involved in the rescue operation, many from surrounding towns and communities. George, located about 400 kilometers east of Cape Town, is a small town known as a vacation and golf destination.
Authorities confirmed that several investigations were underway to determine the causes of the collapse, led by police, the provincial government and the national labor ministry.