HIGH-RISE HORROR
More than 90 residents feared dead in the rubble of a Miami apartment block after 12-storey wing collapses as they sleep
SEARCH teams were last night hunting through piles of rubble and twisted metal for dozens of missing residents after a beachfront apartment block suddenly collapsed in Miami.
Officials said up to 99 were unaccounted for, feared dead, after a wing of the 12-storey building crumbled in the middle of the night as they slept.
A boy of ten was among 35 saved after around half of the building’s 135 units came crashing down.
One of them succumbed to their injuries last night but mayor of the suburb of Surfside Charles Burkett warned that the death toll was likely to rise dramatically, saying the building manager told him the block had been quite full.
‘The building is pancaked,’ Mr Burkett said. ‘That is heartbreaking because it doesn’t mean, to me, that we are going to be as successful as we wanted to be in finding people alive.’ Frank Rollason, director of local emergency teams, was more downbeat when he said: ‘Everyone who is alive is
‘An arm sticking out of the wreckage’
out of the building.’ The tower has a mix of seasonal and year-round residents and, while a log of staying guests is kept, the building does not keep track of when owners are in residence.
Police say 99 people have so far failed to contact relatives.
Kitchens, bedrooms and living rooms were all suddenly exposed to the elements by the collapse. Residents said the sound was ‘like a bomb going off’ while others likened it to an ‘earthquake’ or the 9/11 attacks.
Rescue workers had to amputate a woman’s leg in order to pull her from the rubble, the Orlando
Sentinel reported. Barry Cohen, 63, was inside the building when it went down at 6.30am GMT (1.30am local time) and was later rescued. He said: ‘I looked down the hallway, and there was just nothing there. I thought the whole building was going to collapse so once we were in the cherry picker the feeling of relief was incredible.’
Neighbour Nicholas Balboa said that the building was ‘extremely quiet and eerie’ moments after the collapse until the ten-year-old boy began to cry for help.
He said: ‘I saw an arm sticking out of the wreckage and he was screaming “Can you see me? Don’t leave me! Don’t leave me!” so we wanted to stay to make sure we got fire and police over there.’
What brought down the building, which was built in 1981, is under investigation.