Rescuers 'may have idea where victims are'
Rescue experts said today they were surprised that no sniffer dogs were being used in the hunt for people trapped under rubble after a massive explosion at a Glasgow plastics factory.
Director of the disaster rescue service Rapid UK Graham Payne added that sniffer dogs would be a quick-fire way to locate the victims.
Up to 16 people were still feared to be trapped under debris after the blast which completely destroyed the Stockline Plastics building in the west end of Glasgow .
Mr Payne said the fire crews’ decision not to call in the dogs suggested they had a good idea of exactly where the unaccounted for people were working in the building before the explosion.
This information could have come from survivors who have already been pulled out or them obtaining plans of the building’s layout.
He added that rescue teams were using a combination of high-tech equipment and manual digging to find the people who were expected to be trapped in voids between the debris.
Fibre optic cameras would be lowered into these voids to locate the injured or unconscious bodies, Mr Payne said.
These would be coupled with CO2 sniffers to detect any people covered in debris by their breath, which the cameras may otherwise miss.
Sound locators, which can pick up the noise of people tapping on the underside of debris or moving around, would also be used in the search.
Digging would depend on the size of the chunks of rubble, according to Mr Payne, who said the best method to shift debris from the Glasgow blast would be to use a combination of shifting rubble by hand, jackhammers, and to draft in cranes for any larger pieces.
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