Municipal authorities in George have updated the number of people who were at the site of the collapsed building in George in the Western Cape at the time of Monday’s incident.
The contractor has now confirmed that the number of workers on-site at the time of the collapse was 81. It was previously reported as 75.
The multi-story apartment building was under construction at the time of the incident. Eight people have died.
George municipal spokesperson Chantel Edwards-Klose says rescue efforts have continued overnight.
She says the emergency response team is implementing more substantive concrete breakers and additional trucks to remove building rubble from the site.
“Total Number on-site at the time of incident: 81, Patients retrieved: 37, Patients 8 died, 16 remain, 6 with life-threatening injuries and 7 with minor injuries. At this stage, there are 44 people unaccounted for.”
The rescue operation continues.
George Building Collapse | Hope remains for finding survivors: Colin Deiner
Safety concerns
Officials at the site of the collapsed building in George in the Western Cape, say their strategy will change to recovery from today.
Deiner says work on the site had slowed down due to safety concerns and they would now start demolition operations which would assist in the recovery operation.
“It’s been really successful with what we’ve done as far as opening the building is concerned. Today with the arrival of new equipment we think we will be able to get very far in delivering the building. So the equipment we’ve been using for the first day and two and half days has been rescue equipment. But now you really have to start breaking up the building, you need more. So we haven’t been able to open up quite a lot and it’s not just the question of finding victims that are left.”
— George Municipality (@george_mun) May 9, 2024
Delay
Furthermore, Deiner says their delayering plan is on track with the view of the extra equipment due on site later today.
“So we still have identified voids and as long as we have those voids in this first period I think our feeling is there could possibly still have life. So we working on the basis of 14h00 where we have to make the call. Most of the debris around the lift shaft….and the top floor, we got rid of most of it. We have had some indications from the dogs but we are not deep enough yet so we just continue to remove that top floor and check if the dogs show us anything and then we move to the next floor.”
George Building Collapse | Safety in the construction industry
