Angolan rescuers brought out seven more bodies from the rubble of a collapsed police criminal investigation headquarters, bringing the death toll to 15, state media said on Monday.
The victims — all women — were found in the women’s detection unit which was the worst hit when the seven-storey building collapsed in the capital Luanda at daybreak on Saturday, injuring more than 150 others.
”We have recovered seven more bodies, two of them in decomposition state,” state news agency Angop reported national commander of protection services Eugenio Laborinho as saying.
Rescue efforts were suspended on Sunday night, with Laborinho saying hopes of finding more survivors had faded.
Rescuers have been using sniffer dogs and picking through the rubble with their hands or with cranes to lift pieces of concrete to locate survivors and recover bodies.
Interior Minister Roberto Leal Monteiro said 181 people were believed to have been in the building at the time of the collapse, including 145 detainees being held while under investigation.
A total of 102 of those injured were treated in hospital, and nine of them were said to be in a serious condition.
While the authorities have refused to comment on the cause of the disaster, Catholic Radio Ecclesia reported that a seventh floor had been added to the original building, with a massive generator placed on the top floor.
Angola’s infrastructure has been ravaged by a nearly three-decade civil war. – Sapa-AFP