Three men have died in #DurbanBuildingCollapse
Three people were killed when a concrete structure collapsed in Jacobs, south of Durban on Wednesday. Pictures: Rescue Care Three people were killed when a concrete structure collapsed in Jacobs, south of Durban on Wednesday. Pictures: Rescue Care
Durban - The number of people killed after a structural collapse occurred in Jacobs, south of Durban, has risen to three.
Private paramedic services, Rescue Care said in a statement on Wednesday that three men were killed and five others were seriously injured after a structural collapse occurred on Chamberlain Road just after 12:30pm.
Rescue Care's Garrith Jamieson said paramedics arrived on the scene to find a large part of a concrete structure had collapsed onto workers and the roadside squashing a truck.
"A quick triage was established and five men had sustained serious injuries and were stabilised on the scene by Advanced Life Support Paramedics before being transported to nearby hospitals for the further care that they required. Three men were trapped under the concrete and the Durban Fire Department and SAPS Search and Rescue worked into the late afternoon to free the men."
He said all three men died due to the severity of their injuries.
The process to retrieve the men had been slow with firefighters and law enforcement officers using jackhammers to dismantle steel reinforcements from the concrete so the slab could be broken into pieces to be removed.
Department of Labour officials were also at the scene and the department's spokesperson Lungelo Mkamba said the cause of the collapse would be investigated.