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The idea that one more person had survived the blast had become a ray of hope in the oppressed city. As in much of Lebanon, there is widespread dissatisfaction with the scandal-struck government and frustration with the struggling economy.
Those hopes were dashed on Saturday when the Chilean team leading the search and rescue efforts said no one is alive under the rubble.
“Unfortunately, today we can say that there are no signs of life inside the building,” Francisco Lermanda, head of Topos, a Chilean rescue team, told reporters at a press conference.
Previously, the search team thought they had detected signs of life, but Lermanda explained that the breaths they heard came from members of their own team, which they only learned after surveying the area.
“We detect respiration around 3 am, an exhalation. But after reviewing the area we realized that this exhalation was from our own rescuers who had entered the first floor hours earlier. The device is very sensitive, therefore minimal exhalation will be detected, “he said.
Riad Al Asad, the main Lebanese engineer working with the Chilean team, said three levels of the building were searched and no bodies were found, alive or dead. The team will now search the sidewalk, which they estimate will take three hours, after which it will declare the operation finished, Al Asad said.
Lermanda told reporters that one of the last acts the rescue team did before reporting that no one is alive under the rubble was to dig a tunnel and inspect it. “We tunnelled down and our two rescue (workers) sank due to their experience and their size, so we can finally rule out that no one was inside.”
The Topos Chile rescue team said they will carry out other operations in Beirut if the Lebanese government asks them to.
“We would like to go everywhere, but we are respectful of governments and people,” Lermanda said. “If they ask us to go anywhere, to ground zero (the port) or to a building where someone disappeared, that’s where we go.”
Earlier, members of the Lebanese civil defense told CNN that rescuers traced what they believed to be a heartbeat signal to locations under the rubble, but no survivors were found.
“We did not find anyone at the place where he detected the machine,” said a civil defense volunteer Qasem Khater.
The search was triggered by a rescue dog that passed through the destroyed building with the Chilean rescue team on Thursday and indicated signs of life, said Eddy Bitar, a worker for the local non-governmental organization.
Thermal images later showed two bodies: a small body curled up next to a larger body. A listening device also recorded a respiratory cycle of 18 breaths per minute, Bitar said.
Rescue teams dug tunnels through thick concrete rubble to reach the site. Lermanda had said he was wary of the prospect of finding someone alive after so many days under the rubble. But she did not rule it out. One person survived 28 days under the rubble in Haiti, he added.
Tension on site
The operation unleashed a storm of emotion among the spectators of the place. When Thursday’s search was temporarily suspended due to concerns that a wall could collapse and endanger the lives of the rescue team, a protest of about 100 people broke out off-site.
“That breath is our last breath. It is our last hope. Everyone should be ashamed,” protester Melissa Atallah shouted. A woman was heard saying, “We’ve been here for a month, can’t you stay up one night?”
The scores reached the site of the rescue effort after the Chilean team had left, demanding an immediate resumption of the operation. One woman said she called for a tow truck, while other protesters climbed through the rubble offering to search for the body themselves.
Tension continued to build until soldiers told protesters that the team and their gear would return to the site imminently.
Several people CNN spoke to said that a strong putrid odor emanated from the destroyed building after the explosion. One woman said she repeatedly alerted authorities and urged them to search the site.
