- Three individuals met their demise in a cave caving-in incident situated in Upper Austria.
In the caving-in of a cellar in Austrian Schärding, three construction workers found themselves entombed. One of the men successfully wriggled free, leaving the other two trapped beneath the debris, as reported by the fire department in this Upper Austrian city, which borders Bavaria.
The incident took place during renovation work on a structure housing a bookstore. The cellar's vault gave way, leading to the formation of a 1.5-meter high mountain of debris, according to a fire department commander.
High-risk procedure
Initially, attempts were made to clear the debris manually, but the risk of the entire building crumbling proved too great. Consequently, two adjacent dwellings were evacuated as a precautionary measure.
The search for the two remaining workers was subsequently discontinued. The operation was then reclassified as a "recovery" mission, as the fire department announced. This terminology is employed by emergency services when they presume the missing individuals to have perished. Alongside 81 firefighters and construction professionals, police officers with scent-detecting canines, and military personnel, the rescue effort involved over 100 personnel in total.
Despite the joint efforts of numerous emergency responders, the trapped men remained unreachable due to the unstable structure. The focus shifted to recovering the bodies of the men identified as men and boys involved in the construction work.
