Toll up to four, 159 missing in Florida high-rise collapse
Anxious relatives of the unaccounted for are awaiting results of DNA swabs to help identify victims
SURFSIDE, FLORIDA: Nearly 160 people were still unaccounted for on Friday a day after an oceanside condominium building collapsed into a pile of rubble, and searchers combing through a twisted, shifting pile of concrete and metal feared the death toll of at least four would soon go much higher.
With scores of firefighters working overnight to reach any possible survivors both from under and atop the remains of the building, hopes rested on how quickly crews using dogs and microphones to sift through the wreckage could complete their grim, yet delicate task.
“Every time we hear a sound, we concentrate on those areas,” said assistant Miami-Dade fire chief Raide Jadallah.
Three more bodies were removed overnight, and MiamiDade police director Freddy Ramirez said authorities were working with the medical examiner’s office to identify the victims. Eleven injuries were reported, with four people treated at hospitals.
Officials are still saying that no cause for the collapse has been determined.
Debris falling on rescuers Miami-Dade mayor Daniella Levine Cava said rescuers were at “extreme risk” going through the rubble.
“Debris is falling on them as they do their work. We have structural engineers on site to ensure that they will not be injured, but they are proceeding because they are so motivated and they are taking extraordinary risk on the site every day,” she said.
The work focused on what was left of 12-storey Champlain Towers South, which drew people from around the globe to enjoy life on South Florida’s Atlantic coast, some for a night, some to live.
A couple from Argentina and their young daughter. A beloved retired Miami-area teacher and his wife. Orthodox Jews from Russia. Israelis. The sister of Paraguay’s first lady. Others from South America.
State Senator Jason Pizzo of Miami Beach told Miami Herald that he watched as tactical teams of six worked early on Friday to sift through the debris. He said he saw one body taken in a yellow body bag and another that was marked. They were taken to a homicide unit tent that was set up along the beach.
Many people remained at the reunification centre set up near the collapse site early on Friday morning, awaiting results of
DNA swabs that could help identify victims.
Video of the collapse showed the centre of the building appearing to tumble down first and a section nearest to the ocean teetering and coming down seconds later, as a huge dust cloud swallowed the neighbourhood.
About half the building’s 130 units were affected, and rescuers pulled at least 35 people from the wreckage in the first hours after the collapse.
Crews still fighting fires Television video early on Friday showed crews still fighting flareups of fires on the rubble piles. Intermittent rain over South Florida is also hampering the search.
Jadallah said that while listening devices placed on and in the wreckage had picked up no voices, they had detected possible banging noises, giving rescuers hope some are alive. Rescuers were tunnelling into the wreckage from below, going through the building’s underground parking garage.
Personal belongings were evidence of shattered lives amid the wreckage of the Champlain, which was built in 1981 in Surfside, a small suburb north of Miami Beach.
A children’s bunk bed perched precariously on a top floor, bent but intact and apparently inches from falling into the rubble. A comforter lay on the edge of a lower floor, and TVs, computers and chairs.
Biden orders federal help During Friday’s early hours, US President Joe Biden declared an emergency, ordering federal assistance for the local relief effort.
“The president’s action authorises the department of homeland security, federal emergency management agency, to coordinate all disaster relief efforts,” the White House said in a statement.