A day after stating there were no known people trapped in a partially collapsed apartment building in the eastern Iowa town of Davenport, officials said Tuesday there were five people unaccounted for, two of whom they believe are still in the building.
The situation puts city officials in a tight spot, forcing them to choose between sending rescue crews into a six-story apartment building could come crashing down at any moment or demolishing the building knowing it’s possible there are survivors inside.
Following the rescue of eight people after the building partially collapsed Sunday, officials were set to demolish the building Tuesday morning. But a ninth survivor, 52-year-old Lisa Brooks, managed to call for help once her phone started working again, and rescue crews retrieved her.
A worker walks by the six-story Davenport, Iowa, apartment building after it collapsed.
“The immediate question I know people are asking is, how did she get there? And why wasn’t she found earlier? I am totally transparent with you ― I do not know, we do not know, but understand, please, that I and the city is committed to finding out why,” Davenport Mayor Mike Matson said at a Tuesday news conference.
Officials added that in evaluating the building for survivors, they used specially trained service animals, drones and thermal imaging to determine that no viable signs of life were in the building before Brooks was found.
“We’re very sympathetic to the possibility that there’s two people … ,” Davenport Fire Marshal Jim Morris said before pausing to wipe tears from his eyes “… that there’s two people still left inside.”
“We need to evaluate what we see between the structural engineer, our technical rescue teams and formulate the best possible way to strategically go in there,” he continued.
Clothes still hang in a closet after a portion of the building collapsed.
Some present at the news conference shouted over Morris, calling for rescue efforts to continue. Others have gathered outside the damaged building holding signs reading: “Find them first” and “Demo = murder.”
Ryan Hitchcock is among those unaccounted for. His cousin, Amy Anderson, spoke at Tuesday’s news conference in support of demolishing the building.
“Ryan wouldn’t want anyone else to put their lives at risk to unfortunately [find] somebody who probably has not survived,” Anderson said. “I don’t discount that he could be trapped under there miraculously. We’ve seen some miraculous things, and our God is good, but we don’t want to see any more families lose their lives or anybody else be injured.”
She added that she was “mortified” by the protests calling for the search to continue.
“I plead with our community just to let the city do their job right now. It is an absolute no-win situation, but this is the best plan of attack,” she said.
Officials have not yet determined what caused the building’s partial collapse.
At least one person was killed and several others were injured when a parking garage in New York City partially collapsed. Lilia Luciano has the latest.
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Gaziantep, Turkey — Rescuers pulled more survivors from beneath the rubble of collapsed buildings Thursday but hopes were starting to fade of finding many more people alive more than three days after catastrophic earthquakes and a series of aftershocks hit Turkey and Syria, killing more than 16,000.
Emergency crews working through the night in the city of Antakya were able to pull a young girl from the ruins of a building and rescue her father alive two hours later, news agency IHA reported.
As they prepared the man to be loaded into an ambulance, rescue crews told him that his daughter was alive and they were taking him to the same field hospital for treatment.
“I love you all,” he faintly whispered to the rescue team
In Diyarbakir, east of Antakya, rescuers freed an injured woman from a collapsed building in the early morning hours but found the three people next to her in the rubble dead, the DHA news agency reported.
But experts said the survival window for those trapped under the rubble or otherwise unable to obtain basic necessities was closing rapidly. At the same time, they said it was too soon to abandon hope.
“The first 72 hours are considered to be critical,” said Steven Godby, a natural hazards expert at Nottingham Trent University in England. “The survival ratio on average within 24 hours is 74%, after 72 hours it is 22% and by the fifth day it is 6%.”
Three people are rescued from under rubble of a collapsed building in Gaziantep, Turkey on Feb. 9, 2023 in the wake of major earthquakes earlier in the week.
Basir Gulum / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Thursday 14,014 people were killed in his nation and more than 67,000 injured. On the Syrian side of the border, 3,577 have been reported dead and more than 6,300 injured, bringing the death toll in the two countries to 17,591.
Risklayer, which describes itself as a “transparent and independent collaborative catastrophe risk firm in Germany and Australia,” tweeted Wednesday that it projects the number of dead could wind up topping 45,000.
Tens of thousands are thought to have lost their homes. In Antakya, former residents of a collapsed building huddled around an outdoor fire overnight into Thursday, wrapping blankets tightly around themselves to try and stay warm.
Serap Arslan said many people remained under the rubble of the nearby building, including her mother and brother. She said machinery only started to move some of the heavy concrete on Wednesday.
“We tried to clear it by our own means, but unfortunately we are very inadequately” prepared for the job, the 45-year-old said.
Selen Ekimen wiped tears from her face with gloved hands as she explained that both her parents and brother were still buried.
There’s been “no sound from them for days,” she said. “None.”
People warm themselves around a fire on Feb. 9, 2023 in the aftermath of a deadly earthquake in Pazarcik, Turkey.
SUHAIB SALEM / REUTERS
Erdogan was scheduled to travel Thursday to the quake-hit provinces of Gaziantep, Osmaniye and Kilis amid ongoing criticism that the government’s response has been too slow.
According to the disaster management agency, more than 110,000 rescue personnel were now taking part in the effort and more than 5,500 vehicles, including tractors, cranes, bulldozers and excavators had been shipped.
The task is monumental, however, with thousands of buildings toppled by the earthquake.
Erdogan, who faces a tough battle for reelection in May, acknowledged problems with the emergency response to Monday’s 7.8-magnitude quake, but said the winter weather had been a factor. The earthquake also destroyed the runway at Hatay’s airport, further disrupting the response.
“It is not possible to be prepared for such a disaster,” Erdogan said. “We will not leave any of our citizens uncared for.” He also hit back at critics, saying “dishonorable people” were spreading “lies and slander” about the government’s actions.
Turkish authorities also said they were targeting disinformation, and the internet monitoring group NetBlocks said Wednesday that access to Twitter in Turkey had been restricted, despite it being used by survivors to alert rescuers. However, Twitter CEO Elon Musk tweeted Wednesday night that “Twitter has been informed by the Turkish government that access will be reenabled shortly.”
And NetBlocks tweeted Thursday that “access to Twitter is being restored in #Turkey following hours of filtering. The restoration comes after authorities held a meeting with Twitter to “remind Twitter of its obligations” on content takedowns and disinformation.”
A man walks past a partially collapsed building on Feb. 9, 2023 in the aftermath of a deadly earthquake, in Pazarcik, Turkey.
SUHAIB SALEM / REUTERS
The disaster comes at a sensitive time for Erdogan, who faces an economic downturn and high inflation. Perceptions that his government mismanaged the crisis could hurt his standing. He said the government would distribute 10,000 Turkish lira ($532) to affected families.
Teams from more than two dozen countries have joined the local emergency personnel in the effort. But the scale of destruction from the quake and its powerful aftershocks was so immense and spread over such a wide area that many people were still awaiting help.
The Reuters news agency and Agence France-Presse reported that the first convoy carrying humanitarian aid into Syria since the quakes struck crossed the border from Turkey Thursday.
In Kabul, hundreds of Afghans, including women and children, dashed toward the airport after a false rumor spread that flights were leaving for Turkey to help rescue earthquake victims. U.N. special envoy Geir Pedersen had said earlier that people in the Syrian portion of the quake zone needed “more of absolutely everything.”
Kabul resident Abdul Ghafar, 26, said he “heard that Turkey is taking out people, so I thought I can go and help people in need,” adding, “Also this can be an opportunity for me to find a way out of the country.”
Ghafar waited for three hours in the cold weather near the airport, heading back home after Taliban forces said there were no such flights to Turkey.
The Turkey-Dyria border region was already beset by more than a decade of civil war in Syria. Millions have been displaced within Syria itself, and millions more have sought refuge in Turkey.
In Syria, aid efforts have been hampered by the ongoing war and the isolation of the rebel-held region along the border, which is surrounded by Russia-backed government forces. Syria itself is an international pariah under Western sanctions linked to the war.
The earthquake’s toll has already outstripped that of a 7.8-magnitude quake in Nepal in 2015, when 8,800 died. A 2011 earthquake in Japan triggered a tsunami, killing nearly 20,000 people.
The desperate search for survivors continues across Turkey and Syria following two massive earthquakes that have killed more than 7,000 people so far. Time is running out to save those trapped under the rubble as rescue operations are hampered by freezing conditions. Chris Livesay reports.
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A powerful earthquake killed thousands in Turkey and Syria and the death toll is expected to rise. Rescue workers are digging through the rubble in search of survivors amid the risk of more buildings collapsing. Chris Livesay has the latest.
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Former Hurricane Julia tore a deadly path through Guatemala and El Salvador on Monday, killing dozens and drenching the nations with torrential rains. At least 28 people were reported dead as a direct or indirect result of the storm.
Guatemala’s disaster prevention agency said five people died after a hillside collapsed on their house in Alta Verapaz province, burying them. And in Huehuetenango province, near Mexico, nine people died, including a soldier killed while performing rescue work.
Authorities in El Salvador said five Salvadoran army soldiers died after a wall collapsed at a house where they sought refuge in the town of Comasagua, where hundreds of police and soldiers have been conducting anti-gang raids. Another soldier was injured.
View of a fallen wall following the passage of Tropical Storm Julia, in Antiguo Cuscatlan, El Salvador, on October 10, 2022.
MARVIN RECINOS/AFP via Getty Images
Two other people died in the eastern El Salvador town of Guatajiagua after heavy rains caused a wall of their home to collapse. Another man in El Salvador died when he was swept away by a current, and another died when a tree fell on him.
Rivers overflowed their banks and El Salvador declared a state of emergency and opened 80 storm shelters.
In neighboring Honduras, a 22-year-old woman died when she was swept away by currents, and three people died when their boat swamped or capsized. A man in Nicaragua was killed by a falling tree.
Julia hit Nicaragua’s central Caribbean coast early Sunday as a hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 85 mph and survived the passage over the country’s mountainous terrain, entering the Pacific late in the day as a tropical storm..
By Monday, Julia had moved inland over Guatemala and its winds were down to 30 mph.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Julia was centered about 80 miles west-northwest of Guatemala City, and was moving west-northwest at 15 mph.
The center said floods and mudslides were possible across Central America and southern Mexico through Tuesday, with the storm expected to bring as much as 15 inches of rain in isolated areas.
A resident rides his bike in a flooded street following the passage of Hurricane Julia in the town of Bluefields, on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua on October 9, 2022.
OSWALDO RIVAS/AFP via Getty Images
In Guatemala, two people were listed as missing and two were hospitalized, and about 1,300 people had to leave their homes because of flooding and rising streams.
Julia was expected to dissipate later Monday as it passes along the Guatemalan coast.
Colombia’s national disaster agency reported Sunday that Julia blew the roofs off several houses and knocked over trees as it blasted past San Andres Island east of Nicaragua. There were no immediate reports of fatalities there.
In Nicaragua, Vice President Rosario Murillo told TN8 television that 9,500 people had been evacuated to shelters.
Heavy rains and evacuations were also reported in Panama, Honduras and Costa Rica, where some highways were closed due to the downpours.
The death toll from a gas station explosion that shattered a small village in northwest Ireland rose to 10 on Saturday, and emergency workers who combed through piles of rubble said they did not expect to find more bodies.
Irish police said no one remained missing after Friday’s explosion in Creeslough, County Donegal. Police are investigating the cause of the blast, and Superintendent David Kelly said evidence “is pointing toward a tragic accident.”
Ireland’s police force, An Garda Siochana, said the midafternoon explosion killed four men, three women, two teenagers and a girl of primary school age. Eight people were hospitalized — one in critical condition — after the blast destroyed the Applegreen service station in the community of about 400 people near Ireland’s rugged Atlantic coast.
Emergency responders from Ireland and neighboring Northern Ireland joined in what police said Saturday was a “search and recovery” operation. Sniffer dogs combed the debris, and a mechanical digger lifted piles of rubble from the site on Saturday.
The explosion leveled the gas station building, which holds the main shop and post office for the village, damaged an adjacent apartment building and shattered the windows in nearby cottages.
“There were blocks thrown a hundred yards away from the scene,” local medic Dr. Paul Stewart told Irish broadcaster RTE. “The whole front of the building collapsed… and the roof of the first floor collapsed down into the shop. It’s a miracle they got anyone out.”
Emergency services continue their work at the scene of the Applegreen service station explosion on October 8, 2022 in Creeslough, Ireland.
Charles McQuillan / Getty Images
Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin said it was one of the “darkest of days for Donegal and the entire country.”
“People across this island will be numbed by the same sense of shock and utter devastation as the people of Creeslough at this tragic loss of life,” Martin said.
Agriculture Minister Charlie McConalogue, who represents Donegal in Ireland’s parliament, said the service station was well known across the country because of its prominent position on the area’s main N56 road, and was “the heart” of the local community.
“People are shocked and numbed,” he told Irish broadcaster RTE. “People have been rallying together and everyone’s concern is with the families of those who have lost their loved ones and how they can support them.”
Another local lawmaker, Pearse Doherty, said people in the community were in shock.
“(It’s) something nobody ever thought could happen in a little village like this where everyone knows each other,” he said. “A quarter past three yesterday, kids were coming out of school, people were going to collect their welfare payments. For such a nightmare to occur, that will take some time to sink in.”
