
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, December 13, 1993                   TAG: 9312130061
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA                                LENGTH: Short

HOPES DIM FOR VICTIMS OF COLLAPSE

Fifty-four people remained entombed Sunday in the rubble of a luxury apartment building a day after it was hit by a landslide and collapsed.

Rescue efforts continued despite fading hopes for those trapped by the shattered concrete and twisted steel beams of the pancaked 12-story building. A Japanese woman was the only confirmed death.

Work stopped several times Sunday when sirens warned that a fissure in the ground seemed to be widening, threatening the collapse of a second hillside condominium onto the remains of the first.

The hillside soil was weakened by monsoon rains, causing the landslide.

Nine foreigners - three Filipinos, two Koreans, two Indians and two Indonesians - were among the 54 missing. Officials earlier had estimated 41 people were missing.

Among Malaysians unaccounted for were 15 children, including a group of youngsters holding a party in a first-floor apartment. Alex Lee, deputy minister for national development, said the cries of children could be heard coming from the wreckage hours after the collapse. The cries had stopped by morning.

Keywords:
FATALITY

by CNB