A group of volunteer rescue specialists from Chile, called Topos Chile, is the latest to jump in and offer support to wounded Beirut.
With the help of local NGO Achrafieh 2020, Topos Chile volunteers arrived in Lebanon three days ago to assist the Lebanese Army in locating victims still missing from the blast.
The Chilean team is equipped with technology that helps it detect victims… and even possible survivors.
On Thursday, Topos Chile detected at least one dead body buried under rubble in Mar Mikhael.
In the same place, the team was able to find a presence of life. They detected a faint heartbeat; a sign that someone still alive after 30 days beneath all the rubble.
The team, alongside local Civil Defense, have been at it since the morning. However, efforts to uncover the body have temporarily stopped. Reports from the site are conflicting on whether it is because the building is at risk of collapsing or that the army stopped the work because “there is only one crane.”
The city has been hoping for a miracle, a miracle of life, which would be also a miracle of hope that the survival of a person under the rubbles for 30 days could infuse the devastated nation with.
Bystanders and locals at the site are furious. Many have complained that it took this long for that crumbled building to be excavated for possible survivors.
