An Israeli rescue team pulled three more bodies from a collapsed building in Nairobi, Kenya, early on Wednesday, bringing the death toll to 17, as an officer said tests indicated anyone still trapped under the rubble is either dead or unconscious.
Radar, acoustic tests and specially trained dogs indicated there is no sound or movement beneath the ruined building, which collapsed on Monday. The dogs, which are trained to find people, could not detect anyone in the rubble, Israeli Major Avi Berman said at the site.
”If there is anyone in the rubble, they are either unconscious or dead. It has always been a race against time, but now the chances of finding someone alive are extremely slim,” he said.
Government spokesperson Alfred Mutua said rescuers will not give up the search.
Police also stepped up their search for the owners of the building who allegedly rushed construction workers to put up new floors, even before concrete on the lower level had set properly.
Rescuers from the United States and Britain helped Kenyan workers in the frantic search for survivors possibly trapped in air pockets. No one has a firm idea of how many more people could still be caught in the debris, since many of the labourers working on the five-storey building fled after it toppled.
Relatives have named 10 people whom they said were working at the site before the building collapsed and are now missing. More than 100 people were injured in the collapse.
On Tuesday, Mutua had said there were reports of bad practices during the construction of the five-storey building.
”They were not being allowed to spend the normal 21 days to let the concrete set. It was taking much less before they were building another layer,” he said
Danson Diru, the divisional criminal investigation officer for central Nairobi, identified the building’s owner as Jimmy Kihonge and the general contractor as Francis Gathiara.
The owner’s brother, lawyer Elias Kihonge, said Jimmy is ”in shock” and will turn himself in to police once he has come to terms with the tragedy.
”He is taking this very seriously. He is very shocked and that is why he wants to take some time before he says anything,” the attorney said. The building project had cost $9-million, largely in bank loans, but construction was not rushed, he insisted.
”Work was not rushed,” Elias Kihonge said. ”We do not know why it collapsed.”
Still-wet concrete could be seen falling off metal reinforcing bars as wreckage was hauled off the site on Tuesday. The smell of rotting flesh began to waft from the rubble at sunset.
Police spokesperson Superintendent Jaspher Ombati said rescuers will not give up hope that more survivors can be saved. Detectives will continue searching for the owner, he added.
The arrival of special power tools that can cut through slabs of concrete and iron rods dramatically sped up the rescue effort. The Israeli rescue team also started using high-tech detection equipment to look for survivors.
US ambassador William Bellamy told reporters at the scene that his country has provided emergency supplies and military engineers.
”One is never completely prepared for a tragedy like this, no matter where it occurs. The Kenyan government did what it could,” he said. ”It is a tragedy, but we are happy to provide a little bit of assistance.”
US marines and navy engineers based in nearby Djibouti were on the scene to see what assistance they could provide. A British team of experts arrived on Tuesday afternoon.
”Our hearts go out to the people who lost relatives here,” Paul Wooster, head of the 10-member British rescue team, said while studying the site ahead of operations. ”Our deployment here is to find as many people as possible.”
President Mwai Kibaki returned early from an African Union summit in neighbouring Sudan and drove directly to the site on Tuesday afternoon.
”We want to pray the people still not recovered may be recovered. It is too soon to say anything about what has happened, but we need courage and to work hard,” he said.
The construction workers had just finished lunch and many were taking a nap when the building began to sway and then quickly collapsed, witnesses said. About 280 construction workers were at the site in central Nairobi when the building came down, survivors said.
Officials have accounted for 108 people, including the dead and injured. — Sapa-AP