George building collapse: Emergency officials testify at Western Cape Legislature
Disaster management officials and responders brief the Western Cape Legislature's Standing Committee on Infrastructure, recounting the George building collapse rescue efforts.
The Western Cape Legislature's Standing Committee on Infrastructure was given a sobering and detailed account of the George building collapse during a live briefing on Friday.
The Garden Route District Municipality and the George Municipality reflected on the devastating event that claimed lives and injured many more.
The incident, which occurred just after 2pm on May 6, 2024, saw a multi-storey building under construction on Victoria Street collapse in what responders described as a rare 'pancake collapse,' where floors fall directly atop one another.
Speaking at the briefing, Head of Disaster Management for the Garden Route District Municipality, Gerard Otto shared the agonising realities of the response operation, saying: 'I don't think anything fully prepares you for an incident like this. Having the plan just makes the gap less of what you didn't plan for and what you've got planned.'
It took 260 hours, from 6 to 17 May, for rescue teams to comb through the rubble, searching for survivors among 62 confirmed victims, most of whom were foreign nationals.
'Only 16 of the deceased were South African citizens. The rest were Mozambican, Zimbabwean, Malawian, Lesotho nationals, some undocumented,' Otto revealed.
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