IN PICS | ‘We’re trying to save as many people as we can’: developer helping rescuers at site of George building collapse

Rescuers are using cranes, drills and their bare hands in a bid to reach dozens of people still trapped beneath the rubble after a multistorey building being built in George, on the Garden Route, collapsed on Monday, killing at least six people.

Of the 75 workers who had been on the construction site, 48 remained unaccounted for on Tuesday. Authorities have not said what caused the building to collapse.

While rescue teams are able to communicate with 11 people buried in the wreckage, families who gathered waiting for news of their loved ones were in tears, fearing the worst.

“We are treating everybody as still alive,” Colin Deiner, chief of disaster management for the Western Cape province, told a press conference.

There have been moments of hope. People clapped and cheered as rescue workers pulled a person out alive from among the broken concrete slabs and twisted steel reinforcements.

They have also made contact with other survivors as they scour the site with sniffer dogs.

“We have one area where four people are in a basement, and we’ve been communicating with them, so that’s quite a big operation [and it’s] taking most of the day to get them out,” Deiner said.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has called for an investigation.

Liatel Developments, the contracted builder of the structure, said it was trying to assist those on the site of the five-storey residential building.

“The investigations to follow obviously will reveal what has happened, but at this point in time [we are just trying to save] as many people as we possibly can,” company director Theuns Kruger said.

CCTV footage showed a cloud of dust as the building crumbled.

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