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8 People Rescued After Apartment Building Partially Collapses In Iowa

   DailyWire.com
Davenport, Iowa, apartment collapse
Screen Shot: YouTube/WQAD News 8

Authorities have rescued eight people as search efforts continue after an apartment building in Davenport, Iowa, partially collapsed Sunday evening. 

First responders arrived on the scene around 5:00 p.m. local time Sunday to find that a large section of the six-story building had given way. Seven people were rescued immediately, and an eighth person trapped in the rubble was found overnight, Davenport Fire Chief Michael Carlsten said Monday morning, according to the Associated Press.  

Rescue teams with canines searched the building all night, and the fire chief said Monday that “No known individuals are trapped in that facility,” The Quad-City Times reported. Carlsten added that the rescue operation would soon “become a recovery operation” as there was no “credible evidence” of missing people. Authorities did not report any fatalities or say how many people were injured as of Monday morning, and it remains unclear what caused the section of the apartment building to suddenly collapse. 

After arriving on the scene, fire crews found a “large natural gas leak,” and water was also leaking from pipes that had broken. The gas and water lines were shut off, but authorities remained concerned about the rest of the building’s structural integrity. 

“Even while we were on scene, we still had multiple secondary drops of debris coming from that structure,” Carlsten said. “We want to make sure all our responders can … process through in a safe manner, but we still want to get through there as quickly as possible.”

Crews had been working on the exterior brick walls at the time of the collapse, and there were reports of falling bricks during the repair work last week, CBS News reported. The owner of the building had obtained a permit for the repair work. The county assessor’s office also said nearly 20 permits were filed last year for repair work on the building’s electrical and plumbing issues. 

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Jennifer Smith, who owns a business in the building, complained about water leaking into her business and said that requests to fix the problem were ignored. 

“We call and report it and it’s always, ‘We’ll fix it, we’ll be there,’ and they don’t,” she told the Quad-City Times.

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