As the loved ones of trapped construction workers could be heard weeping from inside the George municipal offices, at the construction site across the road, more than 200 rescuers were racing against time to pull them from the rubble.
By Wednesday morning, 36 of the men trapped beneath a collapsed five-storey building had been hauled out from under the shattered concrete – seven dead and 29 alive.
Thirty-nine workers were still unaccounted for.