‘No additional debris to be removed’ from site of collapse, fire chief says
But the search for remains will continue among the rubble, which was moved to an evidence-collection site.
As recovery efforts in Surfside seemed to come to a close Wednesday with the site of the collapsed condo cleared, MiamiDade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said first responders continue to search for human remains in the relocated rubble of a disaster that killed 98 people.
Miami-Dade Fire Chief Alan Cominsky confirmed to the Miami Herald that all searches at the site of the collapse have been completed and that “as of now, there is no additional debris to be removed from the original site.”
“We do not anticipate any further human remains to be found at the original site,” Cominsky said.
The shift in recovery efforts came as the county clarified that, as of Wednesday, 97 victims had been identified and
WE’RE TRYING TO SEMI-NORMALIZE LIFE IN SURFSIDE. HOWEVER, WE’RE NOT DOING ANYTHING THAT WOULD JEOPARDIZE THE INVESTIGATION INTO THE SITE. Surfside Mayor
Charles Burkett
one additional victim was believed to remain unidentified, bringing the death toll from the collapse to 98. Of those identified, 96 had been recovered from the collapse, and one victim — previously known to be Stacie Fang — had died at a hospital.
Levine Cava confirmed that the site of the collapse on 87th Street and Collins Avenue had been “mostly cleared” by Wednesday but that recovery and investigation efforts would continue “around the clock” — primarily at the
locations to which debris had been removed for forensic analysis.
“What’s happening now is that the first responders are conducting additional searches of the debris at the collection site,” a county spokesperson said. “They’re continuing to do everything that they can to be as thorough as possible in the search for any additional remains to bring closure to families.”
Asked how these additional searches of the debris might differ from those conducted by search-and-rescue workers originally, Cominsky said the fire rescue teams are bringing in replacement search dogs to locate any remains and “spreading
the evidentiary pile to 2-3 feet high” to ease the dogs’ and search teams’ work.
The continued search and methods reflect the gargantuan task that has faced search-and-recovery workers since Champlain Towers South fell on June 24.
According to Levine Cava, more than 26 million pounds of concrete and debris have been removed from the site.
The Miami-Dade Police Department’s homicide bureau said in a statement to the Miami Herald that the agency expects to conclude its investigative process of the collapse site in 30 to 45 days.
The task of recovering
all the remains is “unfortunately very difficult,” Levine Cava said Wednesday, in part, due to factors like fire, water, the “enormous pressure” of the collapse and “the passage of time.”
Also on Wednesday, Miami-Dade Police announced that they had confirmed the identity of Anastasiya Gromova, 24, whose body was recovered from the rubble on July 18. Four days earlier, her parents were still waiting for any news of their missing daughter, who had just been accepted to a program to teach English in Japan. On the day of the collapse, Gromova had been visiting friends in Surfside to celebrate before
her big move.
“She always wanted to do as much as possible with her life,” her father, Sergiy Gromov, told The Associated Press.
Nearly a month after the partial building collapse, the site looks unrecognizable to those who witnessed rescuers work for weeks on the rubble.
State Sen. Jason Pizzo tweeted images of the site Tuesday night, showing the property where the 12-story Champlain Towers South once stood. Surrounded by orange traffic cones and police barricades, the property — once stacked several stories high with broken concrete and steel — appeared in the photos to have been cleared. Only several pieces of rubble and wires were still visible, as several recovery workers used a crawler loader to pick up a remaining piece.
The relocation of the debris, and with it the recovery effort, might soon allow Surfside residents to see the blocked-off section of Collins Avenue open to traffic.
“I think that in the very near future, we will be able to get Collins Avenue partially open for traffic,” Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett told the Miami Herald. “We’re trying to semi-normalize life in Surfside. However, we’re not doing anything that would jeopardize the investigation into the site. We’re trying to balance those two requirements.”
The county reiterated that anyone in need of free psychological or counseling services in relation to the collapse should dial 211 and said that as of Wednesday, 272 distinct families had made use of services provided by the county Family Assistance Center.