Rescue workers are losing hope of finding a person still missing in the rubble of a collapsed apartment building in eastern Germany.
On Wednesday, emergency services recovered the body of a missing 25-year-old Romanian tourist. A few hours later, they also found a deceased 26-year-old woman. The body was reportedly recovered from the front section of the collapsed building.
“The emergency medic could only confirm the deaths of the two women,” said police spokesman Stefan Heiduck. The bodies are being taken to the forensic medicine department for further examination. Results are not expected until the coming days.
The chances of survival beneath the huge pile of rubble are becoming slim to none days after Monday's building collapse. Emergency services are continuing their frantic search for a 48-year-old man who is still unaccounted for – but rescue workers appear to be losing the race against time.
The man was said to have Bulgarian and German nationality. Rescue workers believe the man is in the rear section of the collapsed building. According to the Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW), they have already made their way as far as the basement areas.
The multi-storey building in the city of Görlitz, near the Polish border in the eastern state of Saxony, collapsed on Monday evening for reasons that remain unclear.
The building contained rental apartments and holiday accommodations, according to police. Initially, five people were reported missing after the collapse, but two holiday guests were later confirmed to have still been travelling to the site at the time of the incident.
The cause of the collapse has not yet been established, although Görlitz Mayor Octavian Ursu said it appeared to have been caused by a gas explosion.
Police said a gas leak was discovered a few hours after the collapse, complicating rescue efforts amid fears that gas was still escaping from the rubble.
Gas pipelines around the disaster site were fully emptied, reducing the risk of further explosions and making the rescue operation safer, a police spokeswoman said.
Görlitz is Germany’s easternmost city. It is situated in the Saxon region of Upper Lusatia, directly on the Neisse River, and has a population of 57,000.
Since 1998, Görlitz has formed a cross-border European city together with its Polish neighbour to the east, Zgorzelec.
Thanks to its historic, undamaged old town, the city is a sought-after location for international film productions.
