Updated Friday July 5th, 2021 1:55 PM
3 more bodies have been found after the remaining portion of Champlain Towers Condo has been demolished, bringing the death toll to 27
The County mayor said the demolition of the remaining part of the building was an important and will allow crews to continue their search for possible survivors.
The remaining portion of the building was brought down around 10:30 p.m. Sunday July 4th, using small explosives placed throughout the building.
Updated Friday July 1, 2021 1:40 PM
Search and rescue efforts continue at an expeditious pace despite the challenges of removing the massive sections of debris from luxury condo.
Te updated death toll includes two children, ages 4 and 10.
Somewhat conflicting information
In 2018 an inspection warned that concrete damage would “multiply exponentially” in the coming years.
Before the collapse, the association president warned in a letter that the damage in the building had “gotten significantly worse” since it was pointed out in a 2018 inspection.
In contrast, the chief building official for the town of Surfside told residents the condominium was “in very good shape,” according to minutes from a November 2018 board meeting obtained by the Miami Herald.
Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle plans to request a grand jury to probe condo collapse.
Friday June 25th 4:22 PM
Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava confirmed the increased missing and death toll at a Friday at a news conference and said the first responders were still searching for any signs of life.
The following written content from Elinor Aspegren, Ryan W. Miller and Wendy Rhodes
“We will continue search and rescue because we still have hope that we will find people alive,” Levine Cava said.
A wing of the residential building in Surfside, Florida, came down with a roar around 1:30 a.m. Thursday. On video footage captured from nearby, the center of the building appeared to fall first, with a section nearest the ocean teetering and coming down seconds later as a huge dust cloud swallowed the neighborhood.
“We just keep putting one foot in front of the other. We’re going to stay with this until we pull everybody we can out of that rubble,” Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett told USA Today. “We will not stop. You can count on us to continue this search until we find every person who’s alive in that rubble.”
Crews working systematically to clear the debris of the collapsed condo building and search for any signs of life picked through the rubble with their hands Friday afternoon.
Heavy machinery was also removing larger pieces of the building. Rain also soaked the crews on and off throughout the morning, turning heavy by afternoon. The smell of smoke was strong near a news media staging area.
“These first responders are going in through tunnels. They’re working from the top. they’re working rom the bottom. This has to be done very, very carefully,” Levine Cava said at an afternoon news conference.
Jadallah said 130 firefighters were on the scene and more resources were expected. “We do not have a resource problem, we have a luck problem,” Burkett said.
“Debris is falling on them as they do their work. We have structural engineers on-site to ensure that they will not be injured, but they are proceeding because they are so motivated and they are taking extraordinary risk on the site every day,” Levine Cava said earlier in the day. Read more from USA Today
A massive search and rescue operation is underway Miami building collapse. Possibly 100 still missing.
The following written content from Morgan Winsor and Jon Haworth
At least one person is dead and several others are injured after a 12-story residential building partially collapsed in southern Florida’s Miami-Dade County early Thursday morning, authorities said.
The Miami-Dade Fire Rescue received a call at around 1:30 a.m. local time about a partial collapse of the Champlain Towers South condominium in the small, beachside town of Surfside, about 6 miles north of Miami Beach. A massive search and rescue operation was launched before dawn, as crews carefully checked the wreckage and remaining structure for survivors. So far, rescuers have pulled 35 people who were trapped inside the building, two of whom were beneath rubble, according to Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Assistant Chief Ray Jadallah.
Footage from the scene showed firefighters pulling a boy from the rubble alive and rescuing other people from still-standing balconies.
Jadallah told reporters that at least 10 people were assessed and treated on site, while two were transported to local hospitals. One of them has since died.
Aventura Hospital and Medical Center, about 8 miles northwest of Surfside, has received three patients from the scene so far. Two have critical injuries while the third is in fair condition, a hospital spokesperson told ABC News.
The oceanfront condominium has 136 units, and approximately 55 of them collapsed on the northeast corridor, according to Jadallah. The Miami-Dade Fire Rescue has sent more than 80 units to the scene and is leading the search and rescue efforts, which Jadallah said are still ongoing. It was unclear how many residents were unaccounted for.
Witnesses told Miami ABC affiliate WPLG that more people are still trapped inside the building.
Multiple police and fire departments from across Miami-Dade County have been deployed to the scene to assist.
Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett told reporters that the condominium was built in the 1980s and was believed to be substantially full at the time of the collapse. The building was undergoing roof work, he said.
Some 15 families walked out of the building alive on their own and were put up in a local hotel, according to Burkett. Search dogs did an initial pass around the wreckage when it was still dark but there were no signs of survivors at that time, the mayor said.
Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava called the incident “unimaginable” and thanked the “brave” rescuers.
“We need to allow them to do their work because every minute in this search can make a huge difference,” Levine Cava said during a press conference in Surfside on Thursday morning.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told reporters that he has spoken to local officials regarding the building collapse and plans to travel to the scene soon.
“It’s a really, really tragic situation, so we’ll hope for the best in terms of additional recoveries,” DeSantis said during a press conference in Tampa on Thursday morning. “But we are bracing for some bad news, just given the destruction we are seeing.”
One witness told ABC News that his wife cares for an elderly woman who lives in the condominium and frantically called him around 1:15 a.m. local time, after the units next door came crashing down. He said his wife and the elderly woman were both rescued.
People in neighboring buildings have been evacuated to a local recreational center, another witness told ABC News. Read more from ABC
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