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Rescuers digging through the rubble of a Beirut building for a third day have said there is no hope of finding anyone alive more than a month after a major port explosion ripped apart the Lebanese capital.
About 50 rescuers and volunteers, including a team of specialists from Chile, had been working for three days to locate the survivors after sensors detected signs of breathing and heat on Thursday.
“Technically speaking, there are no signs of life inside the building,” Francisco Lermanda, head of the Topos Chile voluntary rescue group, said at a news conference Saturday night, adding that rescuers had combed 95 percent of the building.
The signs of life collected by your sensitive team In the last two days, Lermanda said, it was the breaths of other rescuers already inside the building. She said efforts will now focus on cleaning up debris and finding debris.
“We never stop with even 1 percent hope,” Lermanda said. “We never stop until the job is done.”
Rescue efforts had dominated social and local media for days, while the Lebanese were paralyzed, desperate for a miracle. But none came.
But even the dim hope for a miracle captured the imagination of a country already reeling from the coronavirus pandemic and the country’s worst economic crisis in decades.
“I didn’t know that I needed a miracle so badly. Please God give Beirut this miracle it deserves,” said Selim Mourad, a 32-year-old filmmaker.
Building ‘collapsed’
The August 4 explosion killed about 200 people, injured 6,000 more and devastated entire neighborhoods. A month later, seven people are still listed as missing.
Authorities held ceremonies Friday to mark a month since the blast swept through the city.
The dilapidated building where the search continued is located between the residential districts of Gemmayze and Mar Mikhael, among the areas most affected by the explosion and home to many old buildings that collapsed when the shock wave broke through.
Work was slow, rescuers said, as the badly damaged building was at risk of completely collapsing.
“The building is really collapsing, it’s scary and there is a lot of danger for the team,” George Abou Moussa, Lebanon’s civil defense chief, said on Saturday night.
Moussa had said in the morning that the chances of finding someone alive were “very low.”
Workers used shovels and their hands to dig, while mechanical excavators and a crane lifted heavy debris. Scanning equipment was also used to create 3D images of the destroyed building.
