Emergency officials in northern Philippines have ended a two-day search for 16 people missing after the collapse of a nine-story building under construction, which killed at least four. From Tuesday (May 26), the focus shifted to recovering victims' bodies, after the remains of four people—including a Malaysian man and two trapped workers—were pulled from the rubble of the condominium project that crashed into a nearby hotel in Angeles City, north of Manila, on Sunday morning.
"We believe you have been through a lot because of this. We share the pain of what you are going through. Rest assured, we did everything we could to save lives, and now we must move forward," said Maria Leah Sajili, information officer of the regional Bureau of Fire Protection, at a news conference Tuesday.
Alfredo Albis, 55, told AFP he believed two of his cousins who once worked with him at the site were among the missing. "They worked here to earn a living for their families," Albis said; he was sleeping at a nearby workers' dormitory when the structure collapsed.
Authorities halted search and rescue operations Monday evening after rescuers using life-detection equipment determined there were no signs of life beneath the debris. Initially 17 people were listed as missing, but rescue officials said one of them contacted authorities Monday to confirm they were not in the area at the time of the incident.
Officials said up to 70 people were working at the construction site, though most had gone home for the weekend. Al Jazeera's Barnaby Lo, reporting from Angeles, described the past 48 hours as "a roller-coaster ride" for families of the workers believed to be still buried under the rubble. On Sunday, rescuers detected signs of life from two people and found them alive, but optimism quickly turned to pessimism when one was found dead and the other died shortly after being rescued. On Monday afternoon, rescuers detected signs of life through heat sensors in the same area, but authorities abandoned the search, saying the heartbeats detected could be from animals under the debris.
"My hope of finding him alive collapsed," Lea Casilao, whose husband is still missing, told Reuters. Casilao said she and her husband had planned to meet at the site Sunday afternoon, with her husband picking her up. When she could not reach him, she went straight to the site and found a mess of concrete, twisted metal, and collapsed scaffolding. "I kept calling his number, but in vain," said Casilao, 47, sitting in a makeshift tent while a bulldozer outside began clearing debris from the road.
