DEATH TOLL AT CONDO COLLAPSE RISES TO 9
Search continues as families’ hopes dim
More bodies and human remains are being unearthed in Surfside, Florida.
SURFSIDE, Fla. — Four more bodies were recovered from the rubble in Surfside, as rescue work continued Sunday in the diminishing hope of finding more survivors of the collapsed condo tower.
More than 150 people remained missing, although it’s possible not all of them were in the building when it fell. Barring a miracle, it’s clear the disaster will rank with the worst in Florida history, with a death toll that could be more than triple that of Hurricane Andrew.
The four additional bodies bring the official death toll to nine. They were found after rescue workers labored overnight to dig a 125-foot trench through the rubble of the
Champlain Towers South tower. Despite the lack of success in the past two days, they’re still searching for signs of life.
“Any void, any crevice that the team sees, that’s where they search through,” Miami-Dade Fire Chief Alan Cominsky said. “Any that shows positive potential — any little bit of potential — the crews aggressively head in that area.”
Despite the hard work of the rescue crews, hopes faded Sunday and many turned to mourning. Family members of the victims boarded two buses Sunday afternoon for a visit to the site, in what Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava described as “a very private event.”
Levine Cava announced at a news conference that four of the nine victims have been identified and authorities are still trying to identify the others.
Meanwhile, questions arose over a 2018 consultant’s report that warned of “major structural damage” at the base of the building.
New revelations have emerged about the building’s developer, Nathan Reiber, a Canadian citizen who built the condo in 1981. Reiber, who died in 2014, pleaded guilty in Canada in the 1970s to tax evasion for skimming thousands of dollars from coin-operated laundries and issuing $120,000 in checks for phony construction work to cover-up the tax cheating, The Washington Post reported.
A 2018 engineering consultant’s report identified a “major error” in placing waterproofing on a flat rather than sloped surface, allowing the pooling of water.
As the search for survivors entered its fourth day Sunday, rescuers in heavy protective gear used cranes, sonar, cameras and search dogs to look for signs of life.
Family members have submitted DNA samples to allow for the identification of human remains.
Although the focus remains on the rescue, at least two lawsuits have already been filed and questions have grown about how a concrete and steel high-rise could suddenly cave in.