The death toll from an explosion that partly destroyed a plastics factory in Glasgow has risen from four to seven, the fire service said yesterday.
But rescuers hoped to pull more survivors from the rubble left by Tuesday's blast, which injured dozens and buried an unknown number of people.
"This continues to be a rescue operation and I continue to be optimistic," Strathclyde firemaster Brian Sweeney told Sky News TV.
PHOTO: AFP
He said rescuers heard knocking noises from beneath the remains of the Stockline Plastics building early yesterday morning, but refused to speculate on how many people might still be trapped.
He said that emergency workers no longer had mobile-phone contact with those buried under the rubble.
Rescuers, some using thermal-imaging cameras and heat-seeking equipment, pulled seven people out alive before nightfall on Tuesday. One young woman had been found in "distressing circumstances" after six-and-a-half hours of searching but was expected to make a full recovery, Sweeney said.
With banks of lights illuminating the site, rescuers pressed on into the night, sending in sniffer dogs after they lost voice contact with those under the rubble.
But Sweeney said they had not pulled out any more survivors overnight.
The midday blast wrecked much of the factory and left 40 people injured. At least 14 were still in a serious condition yesterday morning, police said. Five people died at the scene and two died in Glasgow's Western Infirmary.
Between 80 and 100 rescue workers were at the site yesterday morning, and Strathclyde fire service has called for search-and-rescue specialists from the rest of Britain to help. Sweeney said he believed the operation would continue for several days.
It was not clear what caused the blast, but Strathclyde Police Chief Superintendent David Christie said there was "absolutely no" indication that it was related to terrorism.
He added that it was hard to tell how many people might have been caught by the explosion.
"People could have been out for their lunch, members of the public could have been shopping there, people could have been walking by, parking cars nearby, so the exact figure has not been established as yet," he said.
Julie Ryan, a spokeswoman for the International Rescue Corps charity, said the search for survivors was "very laborious."
"We are moving the debris bit by bit, shoring up parts of the building that may potentially collapse," she told BBC radio. "The last thing we want to do is to injure or trap any of our rescue workers."
She said rescuers were using a Trapped Person Locator, which probes the air for carbon dioxide exhaled by unconscious victims in the rubble.
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RIVALRY: ‘We know that these are merely symbolic investigations initiated by China, which is in fact the world’s most profligate disrupter of supply chains,’ a US official said China has started a pair of investigations into US trade practices, retaliating against similar probes by US President Donald Trump’s administration as the superpowers stake out positions before an expected presidential summit in May. The move, announced by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce on Friday, is a direct mirror of steps Trump took to revive his tariff agenda after the US Supreme Court last month struck down some of his duties. “China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to these actions,” a ministry spokesperson said in a statement, referring to the so-called Section 301 investigations initiated on March 11.
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
RSS