UAE: Ajman Hotel Collapse – Five Bodies Recovered
Exclusive Report and Pictures By Naveen Frank - Sharjah
Ajman, Jun 4: Five bodies out of the six feared buried in the concrete rubble, have been removed from the site of the Ajman hotel collapse.
Daijiworld has now learnt that all the victims are Indian workers hailing from Punjab and Uttar Pradesh belonging to the Seidco General Contracting, which was building the Laguna Beach Hotel on the Corniche Road.
It may be recalled that the accident occurred early Monday at about 3:00 am at the construction site of the 20-storey Laguna Beach Hotel on the Ajman Corniche. The Ajman cornice road has been closed now for 2 days and heavy lifting equipment, power drills and mobile flood lights have been moved into the accident site to speed up the recovery operations.
The ground floor of the hotel, which has been under construction for two years, is thought to have collapsed onto the basement when an excess amount of concrete was poured on the ground floor.
Apparently the six victims were sent down by the site engineer to check on a leak when the scaffolding caved in and buried them alive. It was very difficult to rescue them as a lot of rubble had to be removed before they could reach the concrete. By then the quick setting concrete had already hardened.
Daijiworld senior correspondent who visited the site on Tuesday evening witnessed an army of emergency personnel and site workers still trying to dig through the concrete rubble. Emergency services from Ajman and Sharjah Civil Defense, the Dubai Police, the Dubai Sea rescue units , the fire department and other civilian heavy equipment operators have joined hands in this recovery operation. Earlier, sniffer dogs were pressed into action to locate possible victims still alive in the debry.
Speaking on condition of anonymity , the Captain of the Rescue team told Daijiworld.com that one more body had to be extricated. Asked if he was sure there were no more bodies underneath, he said that their assessment was based on missing persons from the official roster list of that fateful nightshift. The chances of any other unauthorized person being there at that time of the night is remote, he said.
The Captain said that search and rescue operation was abandoned late last night and efforts were made to recover the bodies. We hope to dig out the last missing person by tonight, he said. “ It is even more difficult to work when we know there is someone down there. We cannot use heavy drills. We have to remove the debry bit by bit,.” he said
Asked if this tragedy could be averted, he said that it was a big mistake to send workers underneath a scaffolding when heavy concrete is being poured. When the concrete floor collapsed, everybody above it escaped. Only those who were directly below were immediately buried. he said.
Abdul Wahab, a Pakistani worker speaking to Daijiworld.com said that he was not on duty that fateful night. But when he came to the site early that morning, he was shocked to hear that 6 of his fellow workers were buried. “ I joined the rescue team and other fellow workers by trying to dig the concrete with iron rods. But all the time we knew there was little hope as the concrete was so hard that only heavy drills could displace it” he said. “ We did not know who was underneath until late in the afternoon when all shifts came in and roll calls were taken. We presume the six who were not present are the ones who were buried.” he lamented.
Well over 15 lakh Indians work as contract labourers in the booming construction field in the UAE.