Three saved, four dead in Philippine hotel collapse

Rescuers pulled out three people Monday from an immense pile of rubble that was all that remained of a nine-storey hotel, which collapsed while under construction in a northern Philippine city, bringing the death toll to four with 17 others still missing, officials said.

Two of the men were dead, while emergency personnel struggled in the early morning hours to revive one in an ambulance near the pile of concrete slabs, twisted iron bars and aluminium scaffoldings that was all that remained of the building in Angeles City of Pampanga Province. They eventually gave up and drove away.

The poignant scene was witnessed by a small group of journalists, including those from The Associated Press, who watched hundreds of rescuers led by firefighters and police scrambling for hours to extricate the men, who were at the time alive but trapped under concrete slabs and iron bars.