“We have spoken to the families of the person,” said Dan Hefkey, commissioner for community safety for Ontario. He did not release a name, age or gender but said the body was found in the area near the escalator.
The body, covered with a white cloth, was carried out on a stretcher passed a line of rescue workers who took off their hard hats as it went by.
Hefkey said rescue crews have returned to the rubble of the mall to search for others.
“They are back in there and making a determination,” said Hefkey when asked if the crews were on a rescue or a recovery mission. “The canine units were also in.”
“We found one, the assumption is that there is more than one.”
Is there any hope people will be found alive? “Yes, always,” he said.
PHOTOS on the Web: Click here for a photo gallery of the scene of the collapse.
A dozen people are unaccounted for.
“They will continue to search that whole area until they are absolutely certain there is no one left.”
OPP Commissioner Chris Lewis promised a full investigation into incident.
“There was never any intention of the HUSAR (Heavy Urban Search and Rescue) team to leave the area without completing the job,” he said to criticism of a stalled rescue since the roof collapse Saturday afternoon.
Despite the concerted effort, he said, “sometimes the best just isn’t good enough.”
While there were “no signs of life,” Lewis said, that didn’t mean all hope was lost.
The search operation is now concentrated on a 10-by-25-metre area after earlier efforts swept the rest of the mall and determined no one was in there, he said.
At least one more person is confirmed to be trapped.
Standing next to Hefkey, Rick Hamilton spoke, his eyes heavy with tears.
“Please allow us to mourn,” said Hamilton. “It is a deep, deep tragedy.”
As the two spoke, locals pressed against the barricade struggling to pick up their words. Their faces strained masks, holding back tears. More than 200 stood in the steady rain.
Gary Gendron, whose fiancee Lucie Aylwin is one of the two people confirmed to be trapped under the rubble, went inside a local business to talk to an OPP officer at about 9 a.m. He has not been seen since.
Crews had worked through the night to clear debris as family and friends kept a vigil outside more than three days after the mall roof fell in on a busy afternoon shopping crowd.
Hefkey said the cranes managed to move an escalator and flight of stairs overnight that had been a big hindrance in the search and rescue. “It was hanging there by its side,” he said. “They pulled it toward them, toward the exit.”
MORE on the Internet: Concrete expert says salt seepage could have weakened Elliot Lake mall roof
Three cranes by dawn had cleared the 10-by-25-metre area, described as a “bubble,” in the first step in the search for those who are still trapped under debris after the mall roof collapsed Saturday afternoon.
MORE on the Internet: DiManno: Amid disaster in Elliot Lake, an inexcusable lack of action
Early Tuesday, Bill Neadles, spokesman for the Heavy Urban Search and Rescue operations, said that someone trapped in the debris would have “a very slim ability for that person to live.”
Nonetheless, Hefkey is not calling the mission a recovery mission, but neither will he confirm it is a rescue mission.
“At this point, because of the time that has passed, the focus of our mission is to be the least destructive and safest for workers and victims,” said Hefkey.
Residents weren’t optimistic.
“It’s never been a rescue mission. They know it and I know it,” said Dave Maclellan. “But it’s the only way people are going to get closure.”
Despite the chaotic appearance of the rescue effort at times, the machines were operating with “surgical precision,” Hefkey said.
They managed to complete all work throughout the night without sending any debris into a designated area towards the back, he said.
Hundreds of residents of this small town showed up to watch the demolition,
Armed with coffees, wearing jackets and carrying folding chairs and blankets, people started arriving at the site around 9 p.m. just as the giant robotic arm began tearing apart a part of the mall.
There were loud cheers and claps as the first bit of concrete and railing was torn from the crumbling building, sending a plume of dust-smoke in the air. Slowly, windows were smashed, part of the roof plucked out completely.
MORE on the Internet: Elliot Lake residents vows to stick together
Shortly after midnight, a large I-beam fell in the area being worked on, setting off gasps from the crowd.
“Certainly everybody is optimistic about what’s happening here. When that big piece fell, people were hoping it didn’t fall in the middle and jeopardize any possible miracle,” said local MP Carol Hughes.
To a question how the search and rescue teams who worked through the night were holding up, Hefkey said they want “to bring this to a successful conclusion.”
Hefkey didn’t specify when but said that structural engineers will work with the ministry of labour to determine what happened at the mall on Saturday afternoon.
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