A pre-World War II apartment house collapsed Saturday in southwestern Poland, leaving six people dead and four injured, authorities said.
Scores of firefighters with dogs continued to search the rubble of the building in the town of Swiebodzice (Shvyeh-‘boh-tchi-tseh), to make sure no one remained trapped.
According to Daniel Mucha, regional spokesman for the firefighters, the two upper floors of the three-floor building might have collapsed due to a gas explosion. A team of construction experts were to investigate the cause.
The rescue management centre said the body of a sixth victim was found late Saturday. Two of the dead were school-age children.
Prime Minister Beata Szydlo arrived late Saturday at the site, 420 kilometres (250 miles) southwest of Warsaw, to talk with the victims and the rescue workers.
The injured were taken to hospitals in Swiebodzice and in Wroclaw. One survivor, identified only by her first name Stanislawa, told TVN24 that she was “miraculously saved.”
“I was in the kitchen and suddenly it was dark and full of debris and some broken wooden planks,” she said from her hospital bed in Swiebodzice. “I got on top of those planks and started calling ‘Help! Help!’ Two firefighters came and pulled me out by the arm.”
She said her husband was resting on the bed at the time of the collapse.
“I don’t know what has happened to him,” she said, her voice trembling.
With her teenage son, also a survivor, at her side, she said the family had lost everything.
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