Hundreds of rescuers worked late Wednesday to save a 43-year-old Venezuelan who has survived for a week under the ruins of a seven-story building, a AFP The journalist was a witness.
Hernán Gil, a 43-year-old security guard, is trapped inside his shed under the building where he worked in Catia La Mar, a coastal area almost devastated by the twin earthquakes of June 24, magnitude 7.2 and 7.5.
Rescue teams from seven countries (Venezuela, Chile, the United States, Portugal, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Mexico) have been working around the clock for the last three days to reach him.
On Wednesday night they were almost a meter from their position, rescuers said. AFP.
Chile's fire service posted a video on Instagram of Gil inside his chamber, moving his head to look at the camera.
He was wearing a mask and his right eye was bloodshot.
“This is truly a miracle,” Gil's wife, Gusbimar González, told AFP.
“I'm completely shocked because this is the first time I've seen so many countries come together like this to save one person,” she said.
News of the rescue attempt came at the end of a day when hope of finding more survivors had faded, seven days after the catastrophic earthquakes, which killed nearly 2,300 people and left thousands more missing.
While firefighters approached him, others monitored the movements of a neighboring building, which is in danger of collapsing.
The rescuers, who have been working since Monday, shored up the foundation of the building with wood and iron to prevent the leaning structure from further collapsing completely.
Throughout the operation they gave Gil water to keep him hydrated and they installed a tube through which they supplied him with air.
The men advanced along two routes simultaneously to reach Gil.
“This is a fairly complicated structure to access,” said Cristian Vera, leader of the Chilean rescue team. AFP.
He said that the existence of “very large pillars” made it “not easy to reach the exact place where the victim was.”
The initial plan to build a 60-by-60-centimeter tunnel was scrapped Tuesday when the building shifted slightly.
“We had to develop a new work plan to try to enter through a different route than the one we had used until last night,” Vera explained.
