British mum and baby feared dead in Miami disaster
159 now missing after building collapse
A PREGNANT British mother and her family were among more than 150 people still missing last night after half of a Miami apartment block collapsed.
Bhavna Patel, 38, her husband Vishal, 42, and their one-year-old daughter Aishani lived on the third floor of the Champlain Towers complex.
As the rescue operation entered its second day yesterday, firemen drilled through concrete to try to find survivors amid falling debris and fears the rest of the building could come down at any minute.
Four people have been confirmed dead and the number of missing rose from 99 to 159 as distraught families came forward to say they had not heard from loved ones.
Mrs Patel is a British and US citizen whose niece Sarina Patel posted a photo of her and her husband smiling in front of a Christmas tree. She wrote on Twitter: ‘I don’t know where you are or what you’re feeling but know we’re all here for you, praying for you. Keep fighting for us.’
Vishal Abash, a family friend, said Mrs Patel ‘was an angel, a sweet, kind, loving woman’. He added: ‘(In our religion) we worship the mother and she was a form of the mother.
‘Very loving, very unconditional love. I never heard her say a bad word since I met her. Caring. She poured her heart out to you. Very open minded, very friendly. When I got married she was my wife’s best lady, Vishal was my best man.
‘They were godsent and I guess god came back for his angels.’ Those feared to have perished come from all over the world, including six from Paraguay, one Chilean, six Colombians, six Venezuelans, nine Argentinians and three Uruguayans.
Paraguayan authorities said the country’s first lady’s sister, Sophia Lopez Moreira, was missing alongside her husband and their children aged three, six and nine. Luis Pettengill, Miss Moreira’s fatherin-law, said the family had just arrived in Miami for a holiday.
He said: ‘They came here for a vacation. To swim in the sea. To have a good time. They came to a safe place.’ An entire wing of the 136-unit, 12-storey tower slid into the ground at 1.30am local time on Thursday, destroying about half of the apartments. Police are investigating the cause of the collapse. A 2020 study from Florida International University found the block had been sinking at a rate of about two millimetres a year since the 1990s because it sits on reclaimed wetlands.
The block was about to undergo extensive repairs for rusted steel and damaged concrete as part of a recertification process for 40-yearold buildings but had passed an inspection only the day before.