Eleven bodies recovered at Rio building collapse site
The buildings, one 20 floors high, collapsed in a cloud of dust behind the city's 100-year-old Belle Epoque-style Municipal Theater. They housed offices that had mostly closed for the day and few people were on the normally busy street at the time.
One key member of the firefighters' crew involved in the rescue plan told reporters that "the chances of finding people alive from rubble are growing dimmer by the minute."
Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes said the cause of the collapse could have been a structural failure as a result of building work underway inside one of the buildings. He said there was no gas leak that could have caused an explosion. Paes said the collapse was not caused by an explosion.
"The probability of this having been caused by an explosion is null. The point is, it is not normal that three buildings fall down in downtown," he said.
Engineers said work was being done with no permits from city regulators on two floors of the taller building, which could have caused it to collapse and bring the other buildings down.
Building work was underway on the third and ninth floors that was not authorized by the Rio building commission, said Luiz Antonio Cosenza, head of the local engineers association.
"The most likely scenario was structural failure," he said.
Witnesses said they heard the structures cracking and saw plaster falling before the buildings crumbled, causing panic in the streets and covering parked cars with dust and debris.
"It was like an earthquake. First some pieces of the buildings started to fall down. People started to run. And then it all fell down at once," a witness who identified himself as Gilbert told reporters.
One man said he was on the 10th floor and ran down the stairs just in time to escape the collapse. "My wife was inside. I spoke with her just before the collapse," another man in tears said on television.
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Rousseff expresses her condolences to Río tragedy’s victims
