Elliot Lake mall owners want search efforts to continue, will seek injunction

ELLIOT LAKE, Ont. _ The owners of a mall in Elliot Lake, Ont., will seek an injunction against the decision to abandon rescue efforts at the mall where a roof collapsed over the weekend, says the mall manager.
    
The announcement Monday of the planned legal challenge came as some residents expressed dismay at the decision to call off the rescue.
    
“Our hopes and prayers are with the families of those effected by this tragedy,” Rhonda Bear of Eastwood Mall Inc. said in an email to The Canadian Press.
    
“We heard they are stopping the search. The owners are pleading that they continue the search or allow trained personel that are still willing to continue.”
    
“They have lawyers who have begun an injunction against this decision to stop the search.”
    
Hopeful personal vigils gave way to outraged group protests on Monday hours after officials announced they were halting efforts to rescue possible survivors.
    
Dozens of angry community members gathered outside city hall in the northern Ontario city, expressing their disgust that officials had walked away from a rescue effort they deemed too dangerous.
    
“Rescue missions never end, save our families, save our friends,” chanted the protesters, adding efforts to recover survivors had gone on for days in the wake of more high profile tragedies such as 9-11 or global earthquakes.
    
Residents of the former mining hub say abandoning trapped comrades would be unthinkable in miners’ culture, speculating that perhaps volunteer mine workers should take up the rescue effort themselves.
    
The protesters’ ire was kindled after search and rescue officials put an end to a two-day operation meant to try and pluck survivors from the rubble of the Algo Centre Mall.
    
Bill Needles of the Heavy Urban Search and Rescue Team said crews were facing the imminent threat of a secondary collapse within the fragile structure.
    
The section of shopping mall levelled when part of the roof came crashing down on Saturday afternoon became increasingly unstable as crews sifted through the rubble, he said.
    
Would-be rescuers detected “signs of life” earlier in the day, but were forced to walk away knowing at least two bodies remain trapped inside.
    
“I would have liked to explore that but to put an OPP officer in a crane and drop him in a bucket into the ruined structure to do that examination _ and then put a team of safety officers on the roof _ I just can’t do that _ it’s just not safe,” Needles told a news conference.
    
“Our team is certainly not happy. I’m not happy, nobody’s happy that we have to stop work, but that’s unfortunately the way that we’ve had to end this situation.”
    
Needles said rescuers were facing increasingly precarious conditions as they combed the debris for survivors.
    
An unstable escalator that forced crews to remove their cranes from the site earlier in the day continued to separate from its supporting beams as the day progressed, he said.
    
“Realistically the engineer’s telling me he doesn’t understand why it hasn’t collapsed already,” Needles said. “What that does is it makes the determination that the building is … totally unsafe.”
    
Needles said local officials will resume control of the site, which is under investigation by the Ontario Ministry of Labour.
    
Ministry officials will issue an order for at least part of the mall to be demolished, he added.
    
Earlier in the day, officials confirmed at least one person had been killed in the aftermath of the collapse that saw a section of roof come crashing down on the two-storey building.
    
Ontario Provincial Police Insp. Percy Jollymore said officers are still trying to determine how many others are missing.
    
A list of names submitted by concerned citizens has been fluctuating dramatically since the accident, he said, adding at least two have remained constant.
    
“We do have two names of people who are known to be in the mall,” Jollymore said. “Their names have never disappeared on the list.”
    
The charged atmosphere outside City Hall contrasted sharply with the candlelight vigils that took place at the scene of the accident earlier in the day.
    
Concerned community members gathered at the mall to learn the fate of their loved ones and offer support to those awaiting word.
    
“We’re all trying to remain positive that everyone’s going to come out of there and be fine,” said Catherine Timleck-Shaw.
    
“We’ve all banded together. We talk, we hug. We’re just here together.”