‘Total destruction’: Search for woman trapped under townhouse goes on

Neighbours of a townhouse that exploded on Saturday have recounted the devastating moment a woman realised her daughter, in her 30s, was trapped under the collapsed block in Sydney’s west, as the frantic search for her entered a second night.

Five people were injured when a blast exploded the government-owned seniors’ housing complex about 1pm on Saturday at Waikanda Crescent in Whalan.

Throughout Sunday, Fire and Rescue NSW crews remained at the property in a race against time to find the woman believed to be missing under the rubble, bringing in a forklift truck to assist with the removal of debris and using search cameras to peer under the rubble and concrete slabs.

As the sun went down on Sunday, search and rescue teams used a crane to remove part of the front roof that was still intact, to make it safer for workers to search underneath it. They were preparing to work through the night.

Five people on Saturday were hospitalised following the blast that reportedly rattled windows in suburbs more than 10 kilometres away, but all were assessed and discharged by Sunday morning. A dog was also pulled from the rubble, which is all that remained behind the front of the property.

Neighbours who helped the mother of the missing woman said she was a nurse who was visiting her mother when the building exploded and damaged many homes on the street.

‘When [the missing woman’s mother] saw what the building looked like, she just stopped and said nothing; she was in shock.’

Neighbour Ivica Videc

Ivica Videc, who lives in the house that backs onto the destroyed townhouse, said he was lying on his couch next to two large windows when he walked into another room. Two minutes later, he heard “a massive bang” which shattered the loungeroom windows and scattered the glass all over the couch he had been lying on.

He said he ran out to his backyard, where he could see the remnants of the exploded townhouse.

He said the missing woman’s mother had been away from the building but returned a short time after the explosion and was screaming out for her daughter.

“Then, when she saw what the building looked like, she just stopped and said nothing; she was in shock,” he said.

Videc and fellow neighbours Gemma and Amy, who did not want to give their last names for privacy reasons, ran to the woman’s aid. They said they gave the shaken woman a blanket and some water because she had been holding her jacket over her head in the pouring rain.

Videc said he was lucky not to have been on his couch two minutes earlier as he could have been badly injured and hoped the missing woman would be found alive.

“Her mother called the restaurant she works at as well as her nursing [job] but she knew she was there [in the building],” he said.

Several residents on Waikanda Crescent showed this masthead their smashed windows. Some complained there had been a strong gas odour coming from the building for weeks, including one woman who stopped walking down the lane behind the house due to its potency.

Another woman who lived on the street said residents she knew in the complex had been asking for the gas to be fixed for months and she was not surprised this occurred.

NSW Housing Minister Rose Jackson said she is “deeply concerned to hear of accounts from residents who reportedly raised the issue of the smell of gas within the last 12 months”.

“I have instructed Homes NSW to urgently investigate this matter. The department are currently checking maintenance logs for any history of this,” Jackson said.

Authorities have not confirmed the cause of the explosion.

Jackson also said temporary accommodation is being arranged “for anyone who requires it”.

Homes NSW will develop an action plan to provide new long-term housing and other support services including vouchers for clothing and furniture and counselling.

Fire and Rescue NSW Commissioner Jeremy Fewtrell said on Sunday that it was too early to rule out the possibility that the woman wasn’t alive.

“And wherever there’s any chance, we’ll continue this operation as a rescue effort,” Fewtrell said.

“The crews have done amazing work, and have made great progress.”

He said the blast would have “certainly been a very challenging scene for someone to survive”. But he later added: “Our obligation, our duty, is to thoroughly explore the scene.”

“This is still within the window for someone to survive,” Fewtrell said in a statement on Sunday afternoon.

“You might recall in 1997, we had the Thredbo landslide…it was almost a week when Stuart Diver was rescued…hence the effort to really be exploring the building as thoroughly as we can.”

“Our urban search and rescue experts are looking at those spaces where someone might be found – whether that is lifting parts of the slab up to gain access, or drilling holes through the slabs or other pieces of debris and then inserting search cameras and putting those cameras into those spaces and checking them out for any signs of the missing person.”

Fire and Rescue has also brought in specialist acoustic monitoring equipment to listen for taps or other noises that could indicate life under the rubble. Fewtrell explained that crews would momentarily stop work on the site and listen for “even the faintest of sounds”.

“There are small pockets and areas that are caused by the different parts of the building structure falling on top of each other, and so the crews are working their way through those.”

Fewtrell would not be drawn on the cause of the explosion and said authorities would look at “all different possibilities”.

The building experienced “total destruction,” Fewtrell said.

A woman who lives in a neighbouring street to the destroyed townhouse, Leanne Ansell, said she was freezing sleeping on Saturday night because all of her windows were blown.

Another woman said she was nearly hit in the head with a small piece of concrete while walking down her street. The concrete hit the top of her car.

With Anthony Segaert and Josefine Ganko

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