Severe gas explosion

On 29 January at around 8 a.m. there was a serious gas explosion in Langenzersdorf, Austria. As I live in Korneuburg, the neigh­bouring village of Langenzersdorf, I im­medi­ate­ly set off to the disaster site with my dog Egmont after receiving the as­sign­ment.

The situation presented itself as follows: A gas explosion had severely damaged a resi­den­tial complex with about 40 apart­ments on the south-east corner. Of these, four flats on two floors had completely col­lapsed, and the adjacent roof struc­ture, which was still intact, was in full fire. Small fires were also blazing in the area of the collapse site.

In parallel to the fire-fighting efforts, the operations command decided to carry out initial locating attempts with biological and technical means. For this purpose, two search and rescue dog teams were de­ployed into the par­tial­ly collapsed flats using turntable ladders and aerial rescue platforms. At this point, Feuerwehr Wien Ret­tungs­hun­de was already on site with seven dog handlers and ten search and res­cue dogs. As this attempt was not suc­cess­ful, another approach was made by search and rescue dogs via the stair­case. However, this proved to be im­pos­sible, as the stair­case from the first floor onwards was filled with so much smoke that it would only have been possible to pro­ceed using self-con­tained breathing devices and therefore search and rescue dogs could not proceed either.

We then moved with our dogs to a stand-by area near the scene of the accident to ob­serve the further development of the situa­tion. At about 12.00 o'clock we re­ceived the information that all residents of the house could be con­tacted by the police - except for one person. This per­son's flat was on the completely de­stroyed third floor. There­fore, the emer­gen­cy services had to assume with a prob­abil­ity bor­der­ing on certainty that sur­viv­al was not possible under the cir­cum­stances that prevailed immedi­ately after the col­lapse. For this reason and due to the massive danger of collapse, the mis­sion for the search and rescue dogs was terminated by the command.

After another six hours, the lifeless body of the missing man was found under the rub­ble, after the debris had been re­moved by a specialist company together with the fire bri­gade and the Austrian Armed Forces. Un­for­tu­nate for the man, the ac­ci­dent ended fatally.

Author: Markus Bock – IRO Spokesperson for Deployment
Photos: FW-RH

Witness our furry heroes up close

Join us at the World Championship for search dogs

The 29. IRO WCH will take place from 16 to 21 September in Rapšach, Czechia. You can find more details here.

Visit our WCH website