Durban - The search for bodies is continuing, a week after the collapse of a large section of the Tongaat Mall, north of Durban, police said on Tuesday.
“The search is not terminated. We need to move the rubble and make certain that no one else was there,” said Lieutenant Mandy Govender.
A roof at the mall collapsed last Tuesday evening, killing two people and injuring 29.
Govender said members of the police's search and rescue unit were regularly going through the site while rubble was being moved.
The mall, which was being developed by Rectangle Property Investments, was due for completion in March next year.
However the company, headed by Ravi Jagadasan, had not been granted permission by the eThekwini municipality to build the mall.
Last week, eThekwini municipal manager Sibusiso Sithole said the city obtained an order from the Durban High Court on November 14 ordering a stop to all construction.
This order went unheeded and construction at the site stopped only after the accident.
The site was also not properly fenced, but Govender said on Tuesday that it was now properly fenced and guarded.
“There are slabs of concrete still hanging there. You cannot have people going onto the site.”
Jagadasan is the son of Durban businessman Jay Singh, who is reportedly behind a string of construction projects in Durban that have been plagued by shoddy workmanship.
The Sunday Times reported that Singh was a director of Rectangle Property Investments until February.
On Tuesday, the Democratic Alliance urged the province's economic development MEC Mike Mabuyakhulu to fire the board of Ithala Bank for providing R83 million for a failed project on Durban's Point Waterfront development.
According to the Mercury newspaper on Tuesday, the R83m was signed for despite there being no surety from Harikrishen Hansraj, whom the newspaper described as an agent for Singh.
Sapa