Heavy Equipment Brought In to Clear Store Site in Seoul

Workers with cranes and other heavy equipment began removing huge concrete slabs and chunks of debris Monday from a collapsed department store, virtually giving up hope of finding more trapped survivors.

Use of such equipment had been restricted for fear it would cause the unstable wreckage to crush people still alive inside the Sampoong Department Store, which caved in five days ago.

The death toll, tentatively put at 114, could rise sharply because about 340 people are still missing. More than 900 were injured.

South Korean workers using drills, picks, shovels and other hand-held equipment have rescued about 70 people. A 21-year-old woman, the only survivor pulled out Sunday, died two hours later.

On doctors’ advice that the human body usually cannot go more than 72 hours without water, officials virtually abandoned hope of finding more survivors and decided to begin full-scale recovery work using heavy equipment.

Six cranes were mobilized to break open and remove huge concrete slabs and beams from what had been a five-story wing of the shopping mall. Workers said most of the debris could be removed within a day, enabling them to search all parts of the mangled basements.

The families of the missing, after a marathon overnight meeting, agreed to the use of heavy equipment. Some still objected to the decision, clinging to the hope that their loved ones might be alive.

The relatives grew increasingly restive over the painfully slow pace of the rescue. About 700 of them briefly took over a nearby intersection Sunday to demand that work proceed more quickly. About 200 held a similar demonstration Monday.

Their anger and frustration erupted when they discovered that an outspoken member of their ranks was a shop owner who did not have relatives missing. They beat the man so badly that he had to be hospitalized. The man said two of his employees were missing.