Two arrested at Rotterdam explosion site as family of missing men try to stop demolition

The families of two men still missing under the rubble of a Rotterdam apartment building after an explosion and fire on Monday clashed with the police at the scene of the destroyed building overnight. They desperately tried to stop the demolition work on the building as they watched concrete blocks come down on the rubble burying their loved ones. The riot police were on site all night to ensure that no one started searching the rubble themselves. The police ended up arresting two people, a spokesperson confirmed to ANP.

The two missing men are Ilyas (22) and Moustafa (33) - two colleagues who were working together in the building when the explosion happened, according to RTL Nieuws. The emergency services have been unable to enter the building and search for them due to the risk of collapse. They started demolishing the building on Wednesday night to make it safer.

Ilyas and Moustafa’s families were horrified. “They are doing terribly,” a relative of deceased Kamran Kahn (43), the third person who was missing under the rubble, told RTL. Kamran’s family defied the authorities, entered the disaster site themselves, and located his body. They later returned to recover Kamran’s remains when the authorities failed to do so. According to Rijnmond, two forensic officers gave Kamran’s relatives verbal instructions on how to free his remains when it became clear they would not be deterred.

“I have been standing with the other families all evening, and that is what they want now, too. They were told they had to go home and would be helped [Thursday]. But in the meantime, the demolition work has started, and now they see how concrete blocks are falling down on their loved ones. That is unthinkable. They are crying, shaking with sadness. This has to stop,” Kamran’s relative told RTL.

The authorities temporarily halted the demolition work due to the unrest at Schammenkamp. “This was done because we were afraid that people would walk under the demolition crane,” a police spokesperson told the broadcaster.

When the demolition resumed, two men couldn’t hold themselves back any longer and tried to climb the fence cordoning off the area. They were arrested, a police spokesperson told ANP. The police entered into a discussion with the families, and calm returned around midnight. The demolition work resumed after that.

Specialists from the national Urban Search and Rescue organization (USAR) were asked to assess the scene on Wednesday night, and determined that it was still too dangerous to carry out efforts to search for the two missing people and recover their bodies. “The building is too unstable for that,” a representative of USAR told Rijnmond.

Last year, USAR sent its colleagues to help rescue people in Turkey in the aftermath of the earthquakes that caused buildings to collapse in the central and southern regions of the country. Together, the team of 65 police officers, firefighters, paramedics, doctors, nurses, canine units and military personnel found 12 people still alive in the ruin, and helped recover bodies of many others who had died.

According to Rijnmond, the site seemed calm on Thursday morning. The authorities were still working on clearing the rubble, but no bystanders were gathered at around 7:00 a.m.