'Miracle' rescue: UN guard pulled from ruins
Source: Agencies |
January 16, 2010, Saturday
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Print Edition
RESCUERS who heard scratching sounds pulled a security guard from the UN headquarters building that collapsed in the Haiti earthquake, "a small miracle" as 36 UN personnel were confirmed dead and nearly 200 remained missing, the head of the world body said.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the crew located Tarmo Joveer under about 4 meters of rubble. He was given water through a rubber tube until he was pulled out covered in dust but unhurt.
Ban said the UN's mission chief, Hedi Annabi, and his chief deputy, Luis Carlos da Costa, are among roughly 100 people still buried in the rubble of the five-story building. The other missing UN personnel were in other buildings and facilities.
"It was a small miracle during a night which brought few other miracles," Ban said.
David Wimhurst, a UN spokesman, said Joveer "walked out of there unscathed. He was very, very grateful to be alive."
When the earthquake struck just before 5pm on Tuesday, Wimhurst said the entire headquarters building began "shaking violently" and he was holding on to furniture "to stop myself being thrown around the room, and praying that the big concrete pillar in the middle of my office would not break and bring the whole building down on me."
After the shaking subsided, he saw the central part of the building had collapsed. About 15 people left the wrecked building by going out his window and down three stories on "a rather rickety ladder."
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the crew located Tarmo Joveer under about 4 meters of rubble. He was given water through a rubber tube until he was pulled out covered in dust but unhurt.
Ban said the UN's mission chief, Hedi Annabi, and his chief deputy, Luis Carlos da Costa, are among roughly 100 people still buried in the rubble of the five-story building. The other missing UN personnel were in other buildings and facilities.
"It was a small miracle during a night which brought few other miracles," Ban said.
David Wimhurst, a UN spokesman, said Joveer "walked out of there unscathed. He was very, very grateful to be alive."
When the earthquake struck just before 5pm on Tuesday, Wimhurst said the entire headquarters building began "shaking violently" and he was holding on to furniture "to stop myself being thrown around the room, and praying that the big concrete pillar in the middle of my office would not break and bring the whole building down on me."
After the shaking subsided, he saw the central part of the building had collapsed. About 15 people left the wrecked building by going out his window and down three stories on "a rather rickety ladder."
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