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Rescuers search for workers still unaccounted for under the rubble at the Tongaat mall in South Africa after a floor collapsed. Photograph: Rajesh Jantilal/AFP/Getty Images

TONGAAT – Rescuers on Wednesday sifted through the rubble of a collapsed half-built mall near the South African city of Durban where dozens of construction workers were still feared trapped after an all-night search for survivors.
Emergency services said one person had died and 29 people have been rescued after the vast roof of the structure collapsed on Tuesday afternoon in the town of Tongaat.
Chris Botha of private emergency medical firm Netcare 911 said 29 people “were treated and stabilised and they were taken to hospitals, one of them by helicopter.”
A woman was found and died at the scene, while others were treated for broken bones, multiple fractures and crush injuries.
Under emergency lighting rescue workers toiled through the night with sniffer dogs and specialist equipment trying to find an unknown number of construction workers who may still be trapped.
Their effort has been hampered by a lack of information about how many people were working on the build.
Cheap labour means it is not unusual to see hundreds of workers toiling away at construction sites in South Africa and the incident occurred at 4:30 pm (1430 GMT), just as many workers were knocking off.
“We don’t know how many we are looking for, but we are still looking,” said police spokesman Thulani Zwane.
“We are still trying to interview the contractors and owners… to know how many were really missing.”
Netcare’s Botha said emergency teams are working on the assumption that around 30 people are still unaccounted for, less than the 50 first feared missing.
The site is vast, at around 200 metres long and in parts still unstable.
The incident happened around 40 kilometres north of the Indian Ocean city of Durban.
Fiona Moonean, who lives across from the building site, was washing dishes when she heard a “thunderous noise” coming from outside.
“There was this sound, it was too huge, that I picked my head up — at that point I just saw the whole slab — that just came down and all you could hear was the guys screaming,” she told AFP.
“The smoke looked as if somebody has put dynamite in the building, where everything just blows up.
“When the dust started to settle some of the guys started getting out and tried to go back to try and help some of their colleagues.
“The most traumatic part was hearing the guys screaming,” she said.
The cause of the roof collapse was not immediately clear, but the construction company had been issued with a court order to stop work last month.
“We took the contractor to court a month ago. We thought they had stopped,” Durban Deputy Mayor Nomvuzo Shabalala told local news agency SAPA.
Local media named the firm as Gralio Precast, a company linked to controversial businessman Jay Singh
According to The Mercury newspaper Singh was previously convicted of bribing a city official to overlook substandard building.
Police said a full-scale investigation was now being launched. – AFP.