Elliot Lake rescue efforts: What went wrong and who’s to blame?

Yesterday, rescue efforts in Elliot Lake ended with the removal of two bodies from the caved-in Algo Centre Mall's rubble.

As the town grieves the tragic loss, questions arise surrounding the disaster: Did the government respond fast enough? Are government cuts hurting the availability and preparedness of search-and-rescue teams?

The mall's roof collapsed on Saturday. The disaster's two victims, identified as Dolores Parizzolo, 70, and Lucie Aylwin, 37, were removed from the wreckage almost 100 hours later. Both women were at the mall's lotto kiosk when part of the roof collapsed on them.

A coroner is investigating their deaths.

"If anybody survived after three days in that, good luck," said one Elliot Lake resident, acknowledging that the final rescue effort came too late.

Critics are questioning the government's response time in addressing the disaster.

[ Related: Elliot Lake mall had issues for years before roof collapse ]

"The question needs to be asked as to what the response time was like," NDP Leader Andrea Horwath told the Canadian Press. "Was it adequate, was it not adequate, and how do we make sure that there's not red tape when it comes to trying to save peoples' lives."

Horwarth adds that she was disappointed to learn that the military couldn't be called in unless requested by the premier's office.

The Canadian Press reports that search-and-rescue teams still trump the military in urban disasters. But with government cuts, these teams are at risk of disbanding.

"We have no technical skills in the military for (heavy urban) search and rescue. We have no equipment, and the limited amount of equipment we have is not suited for this type of work," said Sean Tracey, the chair of the board for the Canadian Centre for Emergency Preparedness.

Tracey adds that the military is only equipped to provide drinking water, medical treatment, security and communications in disaster zones like that at Elliot Lake.

The Harper government was warned that cutting federal funding to search-and-rescue teams like the one working in Elliot Lake would cripple them.

"There is a need for the federal government to continue contributions to build capacity and capability for teams focused on Heavy Urban Search and Rescue," a report from Public Safety Canada reported five years ago.

Still, "the latest Conservative budget quietly canned the Joint Emergency Preparedness Program, which provided the lion's share of funding for Canada's five Heavy Urban Search and Rescue units," reports the Canadian Press.

Elliot Lake residents, many of whom had pledged to carry on the search themselves, are angered by the slow pace of the rescue efforts.

"They just brought that in today," local resident and retired miner Andre Rheaume, referring to a multi-stage crane, told the National Post on Tuesday. "We lost three days waiting for that."

The crane arrived after the town erupted in rage at the news that, only hours after rescuers heard tapping coming from the rubble, the search was being called off — the site was assessed as too dangerous for crews — and a demolition company was being brought in.

In fact, just minutes after the roof caved in, paramedics could see limbs and bits of clothing pinned beneath the rubble.

"We tried to get some quiet into the area, and we were pretty sure that there was somebody there," fire chief Paul Office said at a news conference. Despite the two victims just 10 feet away from rescuers, the firefighters and paramedics couldn't reach them through the concrete rubble.

Above the rescuers, two steel beams precariously held back shifting concrete ceiling slabs. It was too dangerous to continue digging.

"If it's unstable, you stabilize it," Aurele Beaupre, a mine rescue veteran from the nearby Denison uranium mine, told the National Post. "We'd have broken through the wall, gone in with supports and inflated an air pillow."

Bill Neadles of Toronto's Heavy Urban Search and Rescue Team defended his decision to call of the rescue:

"We had an individual who is now trapped in a very serious amount of heavy concrete," he said. "We were in a precarious position. I have 37 men to bring home to their families. I hope you understand what I had to do."

Neadles added that his team was "devastated" by the angry response from Elliot Lake residents.

The response didn't satisfy those grieving the two women who had been trapped inside for days. Others criticized the lack of information available to locals.

"We were never kept informed. We had to find out everything from the news people and places on the internet," resident Catherine Timleck-Shaw told CBC News. "It's rather mindboggling that today we had nothing."

Columnist Martin Regg Cohn criticized the cancelled-then-revived effort — "Will they one day restrict firefighters from fighting fires deemed inherently risky?" — in the Toronto Star:

"That the premier had to make a personal appeal to the rescuers to keep at it speaks well to his persuasive powers, but not his government's command and control abilities. That the rescuers on the ground needed an emotional intervention by the premier to get back on course raises deeper questions about how we pull together — or come apart — in times of crisis," Cohn wrote.

[ Related: Expert: Real rescue may seem slow but 'this isn't a Hollywood movie' ]

The three massive cranes were brought in following a staff inspector's assessment that the rescue team's equipment was insufficient to continue the effort.

"We need to carefully review how we responded to this tragedy," Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty asserted at a news conference on Wednesday.

"My undertaking to you all, and to all Ontarians, is that we will learn any lessons there are to be found here. Ontarians are committed to having in place, at all times, a world-class emergency response system."

In the wake of the Elliot Lake disaster, emergency preparedness will hopefully become a larger budget concern.