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By James Bickerton
News Reporter
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Authorities in Davenport, Iowa, are "not telling the full story" about Sunday's apartment building collapse according to Lexus Berry, whose wife, Quanishia White-Berry, was rescued from the rubble on Monday.
A six-story apartment block partially fell down at around 5 p.m. CDT in the city, with Davenport Mayor Mike Matson telling a press conference on Tuesday that five residents are unaccounted for, including two men who are feared to be in the rubble.
Officials had said demolition of what remains on the block would begin on Tuesday, as it is structurally unstable, but this was delayed after 52-year-old Lisa Brooks was found in the wreckage on Monday.
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Local radio reporter Zachary Oren Smith tweeted that assistant chief fire marshal, James Morris, had warned on Tuesday that the building "needs to come down in a controlled manner" to avoid "any more damage or lives lost."
Several dozen people protested against a potential demolition on Tuesday, urging authorities to first locate the two missing men. They chanted "demolition is homicide," with one protestor waving a homemade placard reading "Find Them First."
Lexus spoke about the disaster, which initially trapped her wife Quanishia, in an interview with local newspaper The Quad-City Times.
Both women were at home when the collapse took place, but while Lexus was able to escape, Quanishia went missing before she was eventually detected under the rubble by rescue workers.
Lexus commented: "There was a lot of debris and things surrounding her and her legs were pinned down.
"They were able to get one leg out, but the other leg in order to get her out, they had to amputate it.
"It was a scene that I'll never forget. I'll never forget that image of the way she was trapped."
On Tuesday, Quanishia remained sedated in a local hospital, where she was breathing with help from a ventilator.
Lexus expressed some frustration with the local authorities, commenting: "The people that are having press conferences, the mayor—they're not telling the full story."
According to city fire chief, Michael Carsten, 12 people managed to escape the building on their own after the collapse. A further seven were rescued on Sunday, before Brooks was found on Monday.
In its most recent statement, published on Tuesday afternoon, the City of Davenport said several animals had been rescued from the rubble that day, but no human activity was detected.
They added: "The stability of the building continues to degrade. The recovery of any unaccounted for individuals remains the priority of the City as operational planning progresses."
Speaking to Newsweek on Wednesday morning, a spokesperson for the city of Davenport said they had nothing to add beyond what had already been released to the public.
In July 2021, a condo building collapsed in Surfside, Florida, leaving 98 people dead.
Rescue workers tunneled into an underground car park below the apartments, hoping to find survivors trapped in air pockets.
Four people suffered minor injuries in Atlanta, in September 2021 when an explosion at an apartment block in the city caused it to partially collapse.
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