Surfside death toll jumps to 60 one day after shift to recovery

SURFSIDE, Fla. — Two weeks after the building collapse at Surfside, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said 60 bodies have been recovered from the rubble, as authorities pledged on their first official day of search and recovery to find every single victim.

“The work continues with all speed and all urgency,” said Levine Cava during a press briefing on Thursday morning.

First responders paused their work briefly at 1:20 a.m. to honor the victims of the collapse and mark two full weeks since the partial collapse. As of Thursday morning, 80 people remained missing, Levine Cava said.

Levine Cava said responders will be looking for personal items during the recovery process, including legal documents, photo albums, wallets, jewelry, school graduation documents, religious items, phones and more.

Particular care is being taken to ensure proper Jewish burial rituals are observed and rabbis are present on site to perform ritual prayer over recovered Jewish bodies, Levine Cava said.

The morning after officials announced the mission at the site of the partial building collapse in Surfside had shifted from search and rescue to recovery, candles lined the ground before the makeshift memorial wall, some of them still burning from the night before.

A new addition were the 34 white poles on the sidewalk before the wall, each with a blue heart and bearing the name of a confirmed victim of the collapse.

Lutheran Church Charities volunteers arrived at the wall with the markers Wednesday afternoon, and again Thursday morning, attaching black Sharpies to each one so community members can pass along messages to the victims’ families.