Death toll from Tel Aviv building collapse rises to 5

Israeli police said Saturday that two more bodies were pulled from a collapsed construction site in Tel Aviv, five days after the incident, bringing the death toll to five.

“Overnight, two bodies were extracted from the site of collapsed car garage,” police spokeswoman Luba Samri said in a statement.

“The bodies were transferred to the national forensic institute to ascertain their identity,” she added.

Dozens of Home Front Command soldiers were conducting searches for one last body believed to be buried below the four-story car park, which collapsed on Monday in Tel Aviv.

Israeli authorities have identified three bodies, so far: Ahed Rimawi, 34, from Beit Rima, a Palestinian village outside the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Other identified include Denis Dianchko, 28, a citizen of Ukraine; and Oleg Yakobov, 60, an Israeli citizen from Tel Aviv.

All of the victims were construction workers at the site, which was still under construction at the time of the incident.

Dozens of workers at the site were injured. The car park was supposed to become usable in two weeks, with about 600 parking slots.

The reasons for the collapse were unclear. The police have launched an investigation into the collapse.

The car park was constructed by Africa-Israel, a construction company based in Israel that won a tender from the Tel Aviv municipality to build the site.

Israel has a high number of construction accidents, compared to other developed countries.

According to figures from the Economy and Industry Ministry, 30 workers were killed in construction sites since the beginning of 2016.(Xinhua/NAN)