With 46 dead, rescue efforts wind down after Albania quake

Hopes were fading Thursday of finding anyone else alive beneath the rubble of collapsed buildings in Albania, two days after a deadly quake struck the country’s Adriatic coast killing at least 46 people and injuring more than 2,000.

By Thursday afternoon, search operations were winding down, and focused on one collapsed villa that housed an extended family in the port city of Durres, about 35 kilometres west of the capital, Tirana, police at the site said.

The bodies of five people had already been recovered from the house from which the sole survivor so far was a 17year-old male rescued from beneath the rubble. Rescuers continued searching for three more missing family members.

Search operations in the nearby town of Thumane, also badly hit by the quake, ended early Thursday after six more bodies were recovered overnight from a collapsed apartment building.

The Health Ministry said more than 2,000 people were injured in the 6.4magnitude earthquake that struck before dawn Tuesday as people slept, trapping dozens in collapsed apartment buildings. More than 60 people remain hospitalized, four in serious condition.

The main quake has been followed by hundreds of aftershocks, including at least three with magnitudes of above 5.0, complicating rescue efforts.

While rescue crews sifted through the rubble with diminishing chances of finding anyone else alive, questions mounted as to why some buildings collapsed while others in the same area appeared untouched, with some pointing the blame at shoddy construction practices and corruption in Albania’s burgeoning building industry.

“No construction norms have been applied during the post-communist period” which began in the 1990s, said civil engineer Jorgaq Stasi, 74.