Rescue teams in Beirut continue to hunt through rubble on Friday after signs of life were detected 30 days after a massive explosion destroyed much of the city's downtown coastal area.
A pulse signal is still being detected in the ruins in the Mar Mikhael area of the Lebanese capital. Rescuers traced what they believed to be a heartbeat signal at one of the locations under the debris, but no survivors were found, according to members of the Lebanese civil defense.
"We did not find anybody at the location where the machine detected," said Qasem Khater, one volunteer with the civil defense.
However, another volunteer Mansour Al Asmat, said rescuers had detected a heartbeat signal at another location under the rubble.
"The more obstacles we remove, the more the signal of the machine gives a closer sign of the exact area," he said.
Civil defense volunteers remain in place, but warned that the search operation needed to come to an end.
Asmat said rescuers remained 100% certain that there was a body underneath the rubble but that the person might "not necessarily" be alive.
"The dog is smelling a body for sure," he said on Friday. "We're depending on the machine and the dog."
Asmat added that there was a slight chance that the machine could be detecting something else, such as a watch, instead of a heartbeat.
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