Rescue
After the collapse, many passers-by began to try pulling out survivors. They were soon joined by the Singapore Fire Service, the Police Task Force of the Singapore Police Force and the Singapore Armed Forces. A nearby business, Eagle Piano Company, became a center for the rescue operation.
As there were survivors buried in the rubble, the rescue was a delicate operation. Debris was carefully removed as power saws and drills cut through the rubble.
Sound detectors were used to locate survivors beneath the slabs by picking up faint moans and cries. In the first 12 hours, 9 people were rescued. At one time, LTC Lim Meng Kin, Chief Medical Officer, and several other SAF doctors and two Ministry of Health doctors took turns and crawled through narrow spaces inside the rubble in an effort to provide assistance to trapped survivors, giving glucose and saline drips to them.
Tunneling experts from Britain, Ireland, and Japan, led by Tony Gallagher who were involved in the construction of the Mass Rapid Transit joined in the effort and helped rescue an additional eight survivors.
After the seven-day rescue operation, 17 people were rescued, but 33 people lost their lives. The last survivor, Chua Kim Choo, 30, was rescued on 18 March 1986, having survived after hiding beneath a table.
Read more about this topic: Hotel New World Disaster
Famous quotes containing the word rescue:
“Whether your child is 3 or 13, don’t rush in to rescue him until you know he’s done all he can to rescue himself.”
—Barbara F. Meltz (20th century)
“I positively like the sense, when I dine out, and stoop to rescue a falling handkerchief, that I am not going to rub my shoulder against a heart. What are hearts doing on sleeves?”
—Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944)
“When in the sea-light every early game
Was played with love and, if death’s waters came,
You’d rescue me. How I would take you from,
Now, if I could, its whirling vacuum.”
—Howard Moss (b. 1922)