Rescue mission continues 40 hours after George building collapse

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The rescue mission in George, Western Cape, continues to focus on finding survivors and pulling them from the rubble of the collapsed building.

On Tuesday afternoon, the teams detected life, which led to another person being found and rescued.

The Western Cape minister of local government, Anton Bredell, says the K9 unit is key in finding survivors.

“We stand now on 36 people we got out, unfortunately, 7 deceased, and 39 we are looking for. We will take the dogs and walk the site again, they detect life and then we will focus and get those people out. That is the main focus currently,” said Bredell

39 still unaccounted for: Lwando Nomoyi reports

Difficult process

Meanwhile, the Western Cape government continuously updates the families of the workers involved in the building collapse in George.

“The process of identifying the victims and survivors is also ongoing but it is difficult.”

“The 16 red patients, the critical patients, we can’t identify them and we asked the construction people to send people who know. They are in the ops centre trying to identify people and then we take the families, there are private rooms. We have social services supporting, churches are involved if they want to talk to a priest so the necessary support is there but we understand it is difficult for them,” says Bredell.

George Building Collapse | Another person extracted from the rubble