Survivor pulled from George building collapse identified as South African, Gabriel Guambe
He was working as a tiler on site when the building imploded on Monday. Thirty-nine of his colleagues are, however, still unaccounted for.
A survivor was pulled from the collapsed building in George, in the Western Cape on 11 May 2024. The man was rescued after being trapped for 118 hours without food or water. Picture: Kayleen Morgan/Eyewitness News
GEORGE - The man rescued from the rubble in the George building collapse on Saturday has been identified as 32-year-old South African, Gabriel Guambe.
He was working as a tiler on site when the building imploded on Monday.
Thirty-nine of his colleagues are, however, still unaccounted for.
Eighty-one workers had just returned from their lunch break and minutes later, the multi-storey building they had been working in fell to the ground.
Immediately, a rescue mission kicked into high gear.
The operation to free those still trapped under the rubble
has breached 118 hours.
But on Saturday, the unthinkable happened: rescue teams heard a voice after peeling back a block of concrete.
Provincial Health MEC Nomafrench Mbombo: "We checked his vitals, everything so far is fine. There was no blood. We’ll check it all again at the hospital. He was talking all the way throughout, who he was, where he was coming from and with who."
This rescue has given renewed hope to demolition crews and disaster management workers who are working with vigour, shoulder-to-shoulder.
Saturday's successful extraction has given them an even greater sense of purpose, that more survivors may yet be found.