A heroic rescue worker in Beirut has explained in an interview that he still has hope to find a survivor after a pulsing sound was detected, one month on from the devastating explosion that rocked the city on August 4.
Twenty-five-year-old Ramis Alhasan was interviewed today at the scene of a recovery operation where heartbeats have been detected within the remnants of a destroyed building.
Aid workers have been working for over thirty hours in the hope of recovering some form of life.
Interviewed by Matt Kynaston, Ramis is heard explaining what was going on today (September 4).
He explains: "I’m volunteering to help the moving if there’s any life there." Ramis says he's been at the site since the early hours of the morning and been working all day.
"We had some hopes this morning.
They told us there are only 80 centimetres and we can go under, now they’re telling us we have two and a half metres, so [I’m] a little bit disappointed.
"What are the latest signs of life?" Kynaston asks.
"An hour ago, there was a little bit of signs of life....Heartbeats, like seven.
"They decreased 18, 15, now seven.
We are afraid they might get any lower." Ramis explains that he's happy within himself regarding the work but makes it clear he's disappointed about the situation and the progress made.
"The guys in there are heroes, really they are heroes to us," he says when talking about the rescue team.
When asked "Do you have hope?" Ramis adds "Yeah, I do, if we have one per cent chance I’ll be doing this, even if it was a cat I’ll be doing this.
I don’t mind, it’s a life after all."