A construction worker trapped beneath tons of rubble and sand after a landslide on Durban’s Bluff was rescued in a marathon operation on Tuesday afternoon.
It is understood that the man was part of a team of construction workers tasked with building a retaining wall at a Belmont Road property. While working‚ the hillside gave way. A garden cottage on a hilltop ripped from its foundation and collapsed on the crew.
Members of the police Search and Rescue Unit‚ paramedics and fire-fighters spent nearly three hours trying to free the man. The rescue personnel removed large slabs of concrete and rubble as medics stabilised the man‚ who had been trapped up to his chest.
Rescue Care spokesman Garrith Jamieson said that the operation had been painstaking as the embankment beneath which the man was trapped was unstable.
“Initially the man had been completely buried but his colleagues had used their hands to remove sand from above his head. When we arrived he was heavily entrapped and in a critical condition‚” he said.
