News24 | George building collapse: Families hold on to hope as rescuers race against time

Marvin Charles, Lisalee Solomons, Siviwe Feketha, Belinda Pheto, Nicole McCain and Salette Litago

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Medical personnel assist survivors pulled from the rubble in George. (Luke Daniel/News24)

As the loved ones of trapped construction workers could be heard weeping from inside the George municipal offices, at the construction site across the road, more than 200 rescuers were racing against time to pull them from the rubble.

By Wednesday morning, 36 of the men trapped beneath a collapsed five-storey building had been hauled out from under the shattered concrete – seven dead and 29 alive. 

Thirty-nine workers were still unaccounted for.