Search and rescue under way after Iowa apartment building collapse | Iowa

A person was rescued early on Monday and taken to a hospital, following several more rescues on Sunday night after a building collapsed in Iowa.

The Davenport fire chief, Michael Carlsten, said at a news conference on Monday that it was unclear how many people, if any, were still missing after an apartment building in the eastern Iowa city collapsed.

Rescuers were called to the scene shortly before 5pm Sunday. Fire crews rescued seven people and escorted more than a dozen others from the building in their initial response.

Search and rescue operations got under way after part of a six-story apartment building collapsed, although by Monday morning the authorities had not said whether anyone was killed, despite some early reports on Twitter via local media of one death.

Authorities said people were treated for injuries at the scene but did not detail how many.

Carlsten said the back of the apartment complex collapsed and had separated from the building, which houses apartments on the upper floors and businesses on the ground level.

Authorities found a gas leak after the collapse, Carlsten said, while water also had leaked throughout the floors of the structure.

The stability of the building was a concern following secondary collapses while rescuers were at the scene, Carlsten said.

“Our focus is rescue right now,” the Davenport mayor, Mike Matson, said at a news conference on Sunday.

“This is an active scene. We will continue to work, continue to evaluate, with the whole purpose of trying to find people and trying to get them out,” Matson said, adding that he spoke with Iowa governor Kim Reynolds, who offered assistance.

The Davenport police department asked people to avoid downtown after the collapse.

The cause of the collapse was not immediately known.

Rich Oswald, city of Davenport director of development and neighborhood services, said at a news conference that work was being done on the building’s exterior at the time of the collapse.

Reports of bricks falling from the building earlier this week were part of that work and the building’s owner had a permit for the project, Oswald said.

The Quad-City Times reported Robert Robinson, a second-floor resident, had gone outside and returned as alarms went off in the building.

“When we started to go back in the lights went out,” he told the newspaper. “All of a sudden everybody started running out saying the building collapsed. I’m glad we came down when we did.”

Robinson and his girlfriend were able to take the elevator down just in time, he said.

“This is horrible,” he said. “We don’t have anywhere to go. Nothing to eat.”

Tadd Machovec, a Davenport contractor, told the newspaper he was inside putting up a support beam when the building came down.

Some people in the area said the building has had problems. City officials said Sunday that they had several complaints from residents about needed repairs.

Jennifer Smith, co-owner of Fourth Street Nutrition, said she learned of the explosion from her husband, who works for Mid-American Energy.

“He was on call and got called in for a building explosion downtown. We had no idea it was our building,” she said. “It sounds bad, but we have been calling the city and giving complaints since December. Our bathroom caved in December.”