Florida's ruins of the ruined building stop searching for survivors; 86 people are still missing

“We have taken with great sadness (..) the very difficult decision to move from a search and rescue operation to a [līķu] Miami-Deida Mayor Daniella Levaina Kava told reporters on Wednesday.

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“Right now, we’ve really exhausted all the options available to us on the search and rescue mission,” she added.

86 people are still missing. Investigators will continue to check to see if they were all in the building at the time of its collapse, Levaina Kava said.

Built 40 years ago, the 12-story Champlain Towers South partially collapsed on June 24. Dozens of people were rescued from the ruins, but no survivors were found after the day of the collapse.

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The cause of the accident is still unclear, but the authorities have released a report issued by construction consultancy Morabito in 2018, which did not say the building could collapse, but acknowledged that it needed repairs to maintain “structural integrity”.

Inspectors have warned of significant problems found in the concrete block under the pool on the ground floor, as well as cracking of the concrete in the underground car park.

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“If the waterproofing is not replaced in the near future, the degree of concrete damage will expand exponentially,” the report said. It assumes that the problems are largely due to the corrosive effects of Florida’s salty air over many years.