George Municipality has confirmed that as of 19:32 tonight, eight people retrieved from the rubble of the George Neo Victoria multi-storey apartment block are deceased.

At the time of publishing, 37 people had been retrieved. Of these, eight are deceased, 16 are critical, six have life-threatening injuries and seven have minor injuries.

Thirty-eight of the initial 75 workers on site remain unaccounted for.

Rescue efforts will continue overnight and the emergency response team is using stronger concrete breakers and additional trucks to remove building rubble from the site to free those still trapped.

By 21:00 tonight, the rescue operation was approaching 55 hours.

An update will be issued by 15:00 tomorrow.

Four people located?

Just after 19:00, George Herald reported that a whistle was blown. Although unconfirmed, it was thought this indicated that rescue workers were communicating with people under the rubble. Absolute silence was called for.

Watch the video by Wyndham Ewerts:

This afternoon, rescue workers started removing concrete slabs from the top of the heap.

Watch the video: