Locals caught in US tragedy

SEVERAL Australians are among those feared missing in the Miami apartment building collapse.

Authorities were overnight searching for at least 99 missing in the rubble of the 12-story Surfside building, part of which “pancaked” into the ground early Thursday, local time.

An elderly couple who split their time between Melbourne, Sydney and Florida were among the Australians who were not accounted for.

Local Joseph Waks said he was friends with the Australians, aged in their 70s or 80s, who lived in the beachfront complex.

“It’s devastating,” he told the ABC. “They both became grandparents yet again a few hours before the tragedy. We still cannot believe it.”

Mr Waks, a media executive who previously lived in Australia, said he believed the couple lived in the impacted area of the building.

Danny Rivero, a reporter from National Public Radio in South Florida who was talking to those gathered at the tragedy, described “an international disaster”.

“We’ve been told many Argentinians and Australians were in the building as well, and that all are unaccounted for,” he said on Twitter. “This is an international disaster.”

The Australian government was working to confirm the involvement of any Australians.

Authorities said the search and rescue operation was likely to take a week.

Families of the missing gathered nearby to search for their loved ones.

One woman was confirmed dead and 11 injured after the Champlain Towers South crumbled and Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said there were fears the rest of the building could come down.

“We are afraid the building may be in danger of additional collapse,” Mayor Burkett said.

“The problem is the building has literally pancaked. It has gone down and I mean, there’s just feet in between stories where there were 10 feet.”

Mr Burkett said firefighters and rescue workers were putting themselves in danger to try to find survivors.

A cause was not immediately clear but one researcher who studied rising sea levels and building stability in Miami said that the 1981 towers had been “sinking” since the 1990s.

Work was also underway on the roof of the building and Mayor Burkett said investigators would probe whether this contributed to the tragedy.

Video of the disaster showed there was little warning, with a woman posting security footage from inside her apartment that showed the room shaking for just 13 seconds before the feed cut off.

Rescuers freed 35 from the rubble in the early hours of Thursday, including a boy who was trapped under his bedframe.

Mr Waks said he was friends with the adult children of the missing Australian couple, who were originally from Sydney before moving to Melbourne, and that they split their time between the US and Australia.

He said he had seen the Australian man “a few days ago” outside the building but that he wasn’t certain they were inside the building when it collapsed.