Surfside toll climbs
DEATH COUNT AT 60
SURFSIDE • The death toll in the partial collapse of a Miami-area condo building hit 60 on Thursday as the effort to identify and recover the 80 people still unaccounted for — most of them presumed dead — continued at an urgent pace, officials said.
One day after declaring there was no longer hope of finding anyone alive in the rubble of the tower in Surfside, Florida, crews sifting through the wreckage found six more bodies — taking the number of fatalities to 60 — Miami-dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told a news conference Thursday morning.
Four Canadians were among the victims, only one has been found so far.
Levine Cava said 80 people were still considered missing in the Champlain Towers South disaster, believed to have been inside the 12-storey residential building when it abruptly crumbled on June 24. That number could change as not all may have been in the building when it fell.
“The work continues with all speed and urgency,” she said, adding that search teams suspended work at 1:20 a.m. to observe the twoweek mark since the catastrophe.
Of the 60 confirmed dead, 35 have been identified, Levine Cava said.
“Our detectives are working hand in hand with the crime scene and medical examiner personnel, moving as fast as we can to identify the victims and notify the next of kin in order to bring closure to the families,” she said.
As of midnight EDT on Thursday, the emergency effort officially changed from an attempt to find survivors to a recovery operation, destroying any hope of extracting anyone still breathing amid the debris.
“Yesterday was tough,” Florida Gov. Ron Desantis said at the news conference, referring to the announcement of the shift to recovery mode. “But the work is going to go on and they are going to identify every single person.”
After the announcement, hundreds of people gathered for a vigil near the disaster site on Wednesday evening, struggling to come to terms with their loved ones’ fate.
Desantis and other officials vowed to meet the various needs of affected families, which they noted would last long into the future.