At least six people died and dozens remain trapped in the rubble after a multi-storey building under construction collapsed on Monday in western South Africa, the head of the government of the Western Cape province, Alan Winde, confirmed on Tuesday.
“One more deceased has been discovered and then one more alive. The doctor just sent me a note to tell me that there is one more deceased,” Winde said at a press conference in George, the city where the tragedy occurred.
The death toll thus rises to seven and it is estimated that 42 people are still trapped. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa expressed his condolences to the victims' families and announced an investigation to "avoid a repeat of this disaster." “We have specialized engineers on site because we must find out why and how” the collapse occurred, Winde added.
The president of the province, whose capital is Cape Town, assured that “the building is subject to planning processes at the municipal level and all of these processes would have been followed.” “We have to find out exactly why a building like this collapses and make sure that we move heaven and earth to find out the cause of the accident,” he stressed.
The search and rescue efforts for survivors are in a delicate phase, after having managed to help 25 injured people who have been transferred to hospitals in the province, Anton Bredell, counselor of Local Administration and Environmental Affairs of the province, told the local press. Western Cape province.
“We have established communication with some of the victims, at least ten people (...). They are trapped (...) and it is a struggle to get to them,” Bredell added.
The collapse occurred shortly after 2:00 p.m. local time (12:00 GMT) on Monday in George, a coastal city in western South Africa, according to local authorities.
Around 70 construction workers were in the building, adjacent to the George Town Hall headquarters. “The structure was a building with about four or five floors. It looked like an apartment block,” municipal government spokesperson Ntobeko Mangqwengqwe told local media.
Rescue teams from the Western Cape province and other parts of the country, as well as the NGO Gift of the Givers, continued to search and try to rescue survivors, using microphones to locate trapped people and removing brick by brick. debris to reach them.
The causes of the accident are still unknown, the investigation of which “must aim to (...) prevent a repetition of this disaster,” said Ramaphosa.
