The cause of the collapse was under investigation.A construction worker from the site said he was underground in the garage when he began to feel vibrations.”All of a sudden everything collapsed”, the man, identified only as Micha, told Channel 10 TV.
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A general view of the scene of a building collapse in Tel Aviv, Monday, Sept. 5, 2016.
Earlier in the day, Col. Golan Vach, a commander in the unit, said seven people were believed to be trapped in the rubble at several different locations.
Spokeswoman Luba Samri said that rescue services were attempting to recover the bodies of the two construction workers. There weren’t any other people.
Built under Israeli supervision in conjunction with Chinese, Italian and Russian companies, the new line is an important part of the “public transport revolution” under way in Israel, Katz says.
Palestinian labor minister Mamoun Abu Shahla said the dead and wounded may have included Palestinians, but Israeli had not commented.
Police, fire and military teams were participating in the rescue.
“It appeared to me that the roof of a parking garage had collapsed in the building site”, United Hatzalah quoted another of its medics as saying.
The structure was still under construction at the time of the collapse.
The circumstances of the collapse, which occurred in the Tel Aviv’s Ramat Hahayal high-tech neighbourhood, remain unclear.
The Israel-based Africa Israel firm won the tender for the project, the Tel Aviv mayor’s office said.
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According to a study released in May by Israel’s Ministry of Economy and the National Insurance Institute, the country has one of the highest rates of construction site accidents among Western countries, with 480 people killed between 2000 and 2015.
