The death toll in Haiti after a school collapsed near the capital has risen to 82 this evening when rescue workers uncovered a room with 21 bodies, many of them children, officials said.
Rescuers are working around the clock after the three-storey La Promesse church school in the suburb of Petionville caved in while class was in session.
Some of the walls and debris crushed neighbouring residences in the Nerettes community near Port-au-Prince, injuring others. According to officials there are 124 wounded, including 20 in serious condition.
Rescue crews worked under floodlights to dig through the rubble early today. It is not known how many students were in the school when it collapsed yesterday morning, but authorities said roughly 500 children and teenagers typically attend the school.
Crowds of parents searched the ruins for their children, and the searching continued overnight with the help of UN peacekeepers, relatives and rescue services. The roads around the school were so crowded with relatives that some of the rescuers had to be brought in by helicopter.
UN peacekeepers and Haitian police were able to establish some order by setting up human chains and checkpoints along the road in the hills above Port-au-Prince, but they have been unable to get heavy equipment through the crowds to the scene.
President Rene Preval said the poorly constructed building did not meet building standards but that the priority of authorities was to continue to hunt for those trapped under debris but still alive.
Mr Preval visited the scene and asked onlookers to come down from surrounding buildings that engineers feared might have been destabilised by the collapse.
The concrete building’s third storey was still under construction, and Petionville Mayor Claire Lydie Parent said she suspected a structural defect caused the collapse.
Police commissioner Francene Moreau said the minister who ran the church-operated school could face criminal charges.
The impoverished Caribbean nation lacks sophisticated rescue equipment. Haiti is also still struggling with the destruction wrought by four tropical storms and hurricanes that hit in quick succession this year, killing more than 800 people and destroying 60 per cent of the crop harvest.
More than 9,000 multinational troops and police make up a UN peacekeeping force sent to stabilise Haiti after its former president was driven out in a bloody rebellion in 2004.
Reuters