» Families frustrated by slow pace of recovery effort,

SURFSIDE, FLA. — Rescuers digging through the rubble of a Florida beachfront condo sought to reassure families that they were doing as much as possible to find missing loved ones, but the crews said they needed to work carefully to have the best chance of uncovering survivors.

As the death toll rose Sunday to nine, relatives grew increasingly desperate for news and worried about the slow progress and dwindling hopes. No one has been pulled alive from the pile since Thursday, hours after the collapse. Some family members were taken by bus Sunday to a location near the site after relatives frustrated with the pace of rescue efforts demanded to visit the scene.

“My daughter is 26 years old, in perfect health. She could make it out of there,” one mother told rescuers during a weekend meeting with family members. A video of the meeting was posted by Instagram user Abigail Pereira.

“It’s not enough,” continued the mother, who was among relatives who pushed authorities to bring in experts from other countries to help. “Imagine if your children were in there.”

More than 150 people are still unaccounted for in Surfside, and authorities and loved ones fear the death toll will go much higher.

Scores of rescue workers remained on the massive pile of rubble, searching for survivors but so far finding only bodies and human remains.

In a meeting with families Saturday evening, people moaned and wept as Miami-dade Assistant Fire Chief Raide Jadallah explained why he could not answer their repeated questions about how many victims they had found.

“It’s not necessarily that we’re finding victims, OK? We’re finding human remains,” Jadallah said.

He noted the pancake collapse of the 12-story building, which had crumbled into a rubble pile that could be measured in feet. Those conditions have frustrated crews looking for survivors, he said.

Every time crews find remains, they clean the area and remove the remains. They work with a rabbi to ensure any religious rituals are done properly, Jadallah said.

“So the question is, is why is things taking so long?” he said. “What we’re doing is making sure that everything is followed to a T.”

If crews find any “artifacts,” such as documents, pictures or money, they turn them over to police, officials said.

Authorities said their efforts are still a search-andrescue operation. Alan Cominsky, chief of the Miamidade Fire Rescue Department, said they are holding out hope of finding someone alive, but they must be slow and methodical.

“The debris field is scattered throughout, and it’s compact, extremely compact,” he said.

Debris must be stabilized and shored up as they go.

“If there is a void space, we want to make sure we’re given every possibility of a survivor. That’s why we can’t just go in and move things erratically, because that’s going to have the worst outcome possible,” he said.

In meetings with authorities, family members repeatedly pushed rescuers to do more. One asked why they could not surgically remove the largest pieces of concrete with cranes, to try to uncover bigger voids where survivors might be found.

“There’s not giant pieces that we can easily surgically remove,” replied Maggie Castro of the fire rescue agency, who described herself as “one of the people out there attempting to find your family members.”

“They’re not big pieces. Pieces are crumbled, and they’re being held together by the rebar that’s part of the construction. So if we try to lift that piece, even as carefully, those pieces that are crumbling can fall off the sides and disturb the pile,” Castro said.

She said workers try to cut rebar in strategic places and remove large pieces, but that they have to remove them so that nothing will fall onto the pile. Rescuers also were using a microwave radar device developed by NASA’S Jet Propulsion Lab and the Department of Homeland Security that “sees” through up to 8 inches of solid concrete.