by CAROL-ANN TUDOR

A TOP MIAMI RESCUE EXPERT has given Barbados high marks for its rescue efforts after Sunday morning's frightening cave-in that swallowed part of an apartment building and trapped a family of five – now feared dead – at Arch Cot, Brittons X Road, St Michael.

Allan Perry, chief fire officer and programme manager for Florida Task Force 1, who arrived with his team of 15, including three canine handlers around 11:30 p.m. Sunday, said their first mission would have been to secure the dangerously unstable apartment building before entering the 50-foot deep cave.

"They [the Barbadians] did a good job; we wouldn't have done it any way else," Perry said.

He deemed the area a "typical collapse with a lot of rubble piled up". It contained large fissures, with huge pieces of overhanging rock and was extremely dangerous, he added.

Fully geared and armed with search cameras, listening devices, headphones and remote sensors to search for the five trapped people, Perry, who has been in the fire service for 22 years and with the rescue team for the last 15 years, said his personnel had no qualms "about helping out wherever they can".

Asked to assess the chance of finding anyone alive, he said "most people can live between 24 to 48 hours if they are no life-threatening injuries, but it's always good to get them out as fast as possible". At the time, it was nearly 24 hours since the incident had occurred.

In an early morning Press briefing yesterday, emergency coordinator Dr Brian Charles revealed that the site, with its numerous caves, created a precarious and dangerous situation with debris continuously falling into the cavity.

He said every rescuer being sent in the hole was doing so at great risk.

The Miami-Dade Fire Rescue team, which does 400 hours of training a month, includes drills of breaking and breaching of concrete, confined space operations, trench simulators which were typical for caves like what had appeared at Arch Cot and stabilising buildings. The canines were also trained several times a week.

After seven hours on the job, using three canine teams with listening devices placed strategically within the cavity, there was little hope, as the rescuers said there was no sign of life.