SURFSIDE, Fla. (AP) – With nearly 160 people missing and at least four dead after a seaside condo tower collapsed into a smoking heap of twisted metal and concrete, rescuers used heavy equipment and their bare hands to help. check the debris. On Friday in an increasingly desperate search for survivors.
As dozens of firefighters in Surfside, north of Miami, worked to locate and locate anyone still alive in the remains of the 12-story Champlain Towers South, hopes rested on how quickly crews using dogs and microphones could complete its gloomy but delicate task. .
“Every time we hear a sound, we focus on that area,” said Miami-Dade Deputy Fire Chief Raide Jadallah. “It could just be a twisting of steel, it could be a shower of debris, but not specifically pounding sounds or the sounds of a human voice.”
Hit by gusts of wind and lashed by intermittent rains, two heavy cranes began to remove debris from the pile with large claws in the morning, creating a crash of glass and metal that smashed as they scooped up material and tossed it aside.
Once the machines stopped, firefighters wearing protective masks and red buckets climbed onto the pile to remove the smaller parts by hand in hopes of finding places where people could get trapped. In a parking lot, rescuers in knee-deep water used power tools to cut through the building from below.
Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said teams were doing everything they could to save as many people as possible.
“We don’t have a resource problem, we have a luck problem,” he said.
Flowers left in homage decorated a fence near the tower, and people waiting for news of the search watched from a distance, hands clasped and hugging. Near the beach, visitor Faydah Bushnaq of Sterling, Virginia knelt down and etched “Pray for Their Souls” in the sand.
We were supposed to be on vacation, but I have no motivation to have fun, “Bushnaq said. “It is the perfect time to say a prayer for them.”
Three more bodies were removed overnight and Miami-Dade Police Director Freddy Ramirez said authorities were working with the medical examiner’s office to identify the victims. Eleven injured were reported, with four people treated in hospitals.
Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said rescuers were at “extreme risk” of breaking through the debris.
“Debris falls on them as they do their job. We have structural engineers on site to make sure they don’t get injured, but they continue because they are highly motivated and at extraordinary risk on site every day.” she said.
With prospectors using jackhammers and saws to search for pockets large enough to hold a person, Levine Cava said there was still reason for hope.
Rachel Spiegel described her mother, Judy Spiegel, 66, who was among those missing, as a loving grandmother known for taking her two granddaughters everywhere, advocating for Holocaust awareness, and enjoying a chocolate ice cream all the nights.
“I’m just praying for a miracle,” Spiegel said. “We are heartbroken that she was even in the building.”
Teenager Jonah Handler was rescued from the rubble hours after the collapse, but his mother, Stacie Fang, died. Family members issued a statement in which they expressed their appreciation “for the great amount of sympathy, compassion and support we have received.”
“There are no words to describe the tragic loss of our beloved Stacie,” he said.
Many people waited at a reunification center for the results of DNA samples that could help identify the victims.
While officials said the cause of the collapse has not been determined, Gov. Ron DeSantis said a “definitive answer” was needed in a timely manner. The video showed that the center of the building appeared to collapse first, and a section closer to the ocean wobbled and descended seconds later.
About half of the building’s roughly 130 units were affected, and rescuers used cherry pickers and ladders to evacuate at least 35 people from still intact areas in the first hours after the collapse. But with 159 still missing, the work could go on for days.
Early morning television video on Friday showed crews battling outbursts of fires in the rubble piles.
Computers, chairs, duvets and other personal belongings were evidence of lives shattered amid the remains of the Champlain, which was built in 1981 in Surfside, a small suburb north of Miami Beach. A child-sized bunk perched precariously on an upper deck, folded but intact and seemingly inches from falling into the rubble.
Fernando Velasquez said his 66-year-old brother Julio, his sister-in-law Angela and their daughter Theresa, who was visiting from California, were in the building when it fell.
“I miss my brother a lot. I talk to him almost every day, ”said Velasquez, of Elmhurst, New York. “His call was always a welcome call. But I know that he is in heaven because he was in love with Christ. If he’s gone, he’s in a much better place. “
The missing include people from all over the world.
Israeli media said that the country’s consul general in Miami, Maor Elbaz, believed that 20 citizens of that country were missing. Another 22 people were missing from Argentina, Venezuela, Uruguay and Paraguay, where an aide said First Lady Silvana de Abdo Benítez flew to Miami because her sister, brother-in-law, three children and a nanny were among those missing.
Gilmer Moreira, press director of the government palace, said that the wife of Paraguayan President Mario Abdo Benítez “has already received official information about the search for his family” and was waiting for more details.
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