Hopes fade for firefighters trapped in collapsed Tehran high-rise building
Tehran — Iranian officials said on Friday they were losing hope of pulling any survivors from the rubble of a collapsed Tehran high-rise where about 20 firefighters are feared to have died. Rescue workers, soldiers and sniffer dogs were frantically searching the wreckage of the 15-storey Plasco building in downtown Tehran, which collapsed on Thursday after a four-hour blaze. But smouldering fire and smoke were complicating the search. So far, no survivors or bodies had been found. "It is very unlikely that we will pull anyone out alive from the rubble," said the head of Tehran’s crisis management centre, Esmail Najjar. "Our goal is to recover the bodies of these martyrs without causing any damage to the bodies." The Plasco building was Iran’s oldest high-rise and contained a shopping centre and hundreds of clothing suppliers. "The removal of debris is more difficult than removing debris from a major earthquake because we are dealing with fire, smoke and lack of oxygen," said Red Cre...
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