Two workers were pulled from the rubble of a collapsed nine-storey hotel under construction in northern Philippines early Monday, as the death toll rose to three and 17 others remained missing, officials said.
One of the rescued workers was found dead, while emergency workers tried for hours to revive the other inside an ambulance near the huge pile of broken concrete, twisted steel bars and collapsed scaffolding that once formed the building in Angeles City of Pampanga province. Doctors later declared him dead.
The two workers had been trapped under heavy concrete slabs and metal bars for hours. Hundreds of rescuers, including firefighters and police, worked through the night to reach them.
Regional police chief Brig Gen Jess Mendez said rescuers even provided water and intravenous medicine to one trapped worker in an effort to keep him alive in the intense summer heat.
“He never made it despite all the efforts,” Mendez told AP.
The third victim was a Malaysian tourist who was trapped inside a nearby budget hotel damaged by falling debris from the collapse. Another guest was injured but managed to escape, officials said.
The unfinished building collapsed with a loud crash before dawn Sunday following a strong thunderstorm.
Despite growing fears, Angeles City Mayor Carmelo Lazatin said rescue operations would continue and authorities were still hoping to find survivors.
“My best hope is that we can rescue more people alive,” Lazatin told AP. “We don’t want to give the families of the trapped workers any bad news.”
Relatives of the missing workers have been waiting anxiously near the disaster site.
Lea Mendoza Casilao, a 47-year-old sardine factory worker, said her boyfriend, a mason working at the site, was among those still trapped.
“I’m losing hope because of what I see — slow rescue work,” she said.
She had brought a week’s supply of rice and sardines for him at the construction site, but the couple never got the chance to meet over the weekend after the building collapsed.
Officials said rescuers were moving carefully because unstable concrete slabs hanging on bent scaffolding could fall at any moment and endanger rescue teams.
Authorities said 26 workers either escaped or were rescued from the building, where many workers slept on plywood sheets on the ground floor.
Of the 17 still missing, rescuers have located one worker but have not yet been able to pull him out.
Philippine National Police chief Gen. Jose Melencio Nartatez Jr. said authorities have launched an investigation into the cause of the collapse and possible violations of construction safety rules.
Angeles City once hosted one of the largest US Air Force bases outside the United States, helping turn the area into a major commercial and entertainment hub in northern Luzon.
The former Clark Air Base, about 80 kilometers north of Manila, closed in the early 1990s and has since been transformed into the Clark Freeport Zone, now a busy industrial and tourism area.
