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Search continues for woman trapped after Sydney townhouse explosion
Authorities are searching for a missing person among the rubble of an explosion at a home in Whalan in Sydney’s west.
The blast on Waikanda Crescent levelled most of the two-storey home just before 1pm on Saturday, blowing out windows and damaging a neighbouring townhouse.
Rescue teams are still sifting through the remains, with one woman feared to be in the rubble.
NSW Fire and Rescue commissioner Jeremy Fewtrell said crews were hopeful to safely retrieve the person trapped.
“This is still well within the window for someone to survive,” he told reporters on Sunday morning.
The focus of effort is to really be exploring the building as thoroughly as we can try and make access to either physically inspect or, with the use of our tools, to inspect each possible area.
Fewtrell also said the rescue teams were hampered by a series of setbacks as the search continued through the night.
He said:
There’s been a range of complications throughout the operation.
The job of rescue (teams) is to work their way through and try and find spaces in that collapse area where someone might have been caught.
And so part of that work involves this sort of very manual labour of piece by piece, picking up the debris and moving that away.
Complications included a gas leak, safety concerns about how much work could happen at the site and fire underneath the rubble in the collapsed area.
Firefighters have been unable to directly reach the fire because of the debris, according to Fewtrell.
“But we are able to apply water onto that, the water obviously then drains down and suppresses the fire,” he said.
– with AAP
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Good morning. Mostafa Rachwani with you to take you through the news this Sunday – let’s dive in.