Rescue crews raced frantically through the night to reach students trapped in the rubble of a collapsed school, digging under the glare of floodlights in a disaster where at least 47 people have already died.
It is not known how many students were in the school when it collapsed on Friday morning. But authorities said roughly 500 children and teenagers typically crowded into the three-story concrete building of College La Promesse, which had classes from kindergarten through high school.
The chaotic rescue effort by Red Cross workers, UN peacekeepers and Haitian authorities was inhibited from the start by thousands of grieving neighbors, who blocked the steep, narrow street and fought with school officials to enter the collapsed building in search of their children and friends.
UN peacekeepers and Haitian police were able to establish some order by setting up human chains and checkpoints along the road in the hills above Port-au-Prince, but have been unable to get heavy equipment through the crowds and to the scene, leaving rescuers to essentially work with their hands.
On Friday night, a truck carrying a backhoe to the scene crashed into several cars. It was unclear if anybody was injured, or whether the truck was privately owned or belonged to the Haitian government.
At least 39 bodies were brought to the morgue at Port-au-Prince’s General Hospital, Haitian police spokesman Garry Desrosier said.
Another eight people died in a trauma center run by the aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders, spokesman Francois Servranckx said. More than 80 others were being treated for injuries by the aid group.
Several nearby houses were also damaged in the collapse.
Neighbors suspected the building was poorly rebuilt after it partially collapsed eight years ago, said Jimmy Germain, a French teacher at the school. He said people who lived just downhill had abandoned their land out of fear the building would tumble onto them, and that the school’s owner tried to buy up their vacated properties.
The concrete building’s third story was still under construction, and Petionville Mayor Claire Lydie Parent said she suspects a structural defect caused the collapse, not the recent chain of tropical storms that swept devastation across Haiti.
Police commissioner Francene Moreau said the minister who runs the church-operated school could face criminal charges. Efforts to reach the preacher were not successful.
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