Apartment Building Collapses into Cave System

[Sharon Faulkner]

An apartment has collapsed into a known cave system in Barbados, but news is limited.
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Apartment block collapses into underground cave.
Family trapped since early morning
26 August 2007

Efforts are underway to rescue a family of four trapped underground after part of the apartment building they were living in collapsed into a cave, early Sunday morning.Police, fire and Disaster Emergency Management Agency officials were out in full force on the scene in St. Michael where the incident occurred about 4:45 a.m.

Acting Commissioner of Police Bertie Hinds said engineering experts had to determine whether the area was safe enough to proceed with the rescue attempt, but just after 10 a.m., a two-man team was sent in.

He said they had heard voices crying for help up to four hours after the incident. But he said those cries have become fainter and up to 8 a.m., no one else was heard.

Apartment block collapses into underground cave.

Rescuers get moving at 10:30 a.m.

Stress runs high on disaster site

[Sharon Faulkner]

Rescue efforts called off
27 August 2007

Disaster officials called off efforts to rescue five members of a family trapped in collapsed apartment building after they concluded that there was no sign of life beneath the rubble.


www.cbc.bb/content/view/12312/10/

[Brian Roebuck]

They sure didn't wait very long to see if anyone was still alive. Usually people can survive in pockets for several days. Maybe you had to be there to see how bad it was. A strange tradgedy indeed.

[L Roebuck]

Very unfortunate.

" The Prime Minister told a Press briefing at Government Headquarters: "It is with a very heavy heart and a very great sense of sadness that I have to inform you that the rescue team, drawn from the very best that the United States has to offer, did work through the night and the early morning and the information presented to us is that it is very highly unlikely that there are any survivors to the tragedy at Arch Cot Terrace; it would take indeed a miracle."

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[jonsdigs]

Map caves for 'peace of mind'
Published on: 8/31/07.
The Nation (Barbados}
by CARMEL HAYNES

MAPPING UNDERGROUND CAVES is a costly exercise but Government could consider doing so to provide peace of mind for Barbadians.

This suggestion was made by one of Barbados' leading contractors, Achal Moorjani, following a presentation to the Barbados Association of Professional Engineers (BAPE) yesterday at the Barbados Yacht Club, Bay Street, St Michael.

"We've known all these years that we have caves. I mean Cave Hill is called Cave Hill because there are caves there – and we know that it can happen and with the instrumentation we have now we can map it.

"Now, whether that is too costly an exercise for Government to take, I don't know, but I think it would certainly be in the public interest if it was done and everybody knew where the caves were and dealt with them accordingly," said Moorjani to the media following his presentation on the relatively new Barbados Contractors' Association, of which he is the interim president.

His comments come almost a week after the death of a family of five from the sudden collapse of their apartment unit into an underground cave in Brittons Cross Road, St Michael.

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