Rescue teams find no survivors in Beirut building rubble after three days of hectic efforts

  • Officials say signs of life detected were breaths of fellow rescuers already inside the building picked up by their sensitive equipment
06 Sep, 2020

(Karachi) No signs of life have been detected by rescue workers in the rubble of a Beirut building after three days of search operation, local media reported. There are no hopes to find survivors more than a month after a massive port explosion shattered Lebanon's capital.

As per details, at least 50 Chilean rescue workers and volunteers worked for three days to find someone alive under the debris after sensors detected signs of breathing and heat.

Rescuers said that the teams had searched 95 percent of the building but could not find any survivor.

They said the signs of life detected were breaths of fellow rescuers already inside the building picked up by their sensitive equipment. They maintained efforts would now focus on clearing the rubble and finding remains.

Earlier, the search operation was carried out in Mar Mikhael area after rescue teams detected movement deep within the debris of a building that collapsed in August in Beirut's catastrophic explosion.

The rescue operation was carried out by Chilean search and rescue NGO Topos Chile while heavy machinery including cranes and bulldozer was used in a bid to find a survivor.

At least, two days after the deadly explosion, a French rescue team and Lebanese civil defense volunteers had looked into the rubble of the very same building, where the ground floor used to be a bar. At the time, they had no reason to believe there were any bodies or survivors left at the site.

A blast tore through Beirut when nearly 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrate ignited at the port. As a result of the explosion, 191 people were killed while 6,000 suffered injuries. In addition, several homes and vehicles were also destroyed in the blast. The explosion is considered to be one of the biggest non-nuclear explosions ever recorded.

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