SURFside, Florida (AFP) – The death toll rose to 28 on Monday in the collapse of a condo tower in Florida after an oncoming tropical storm brought down the rest of the building dangerously unstable with explosives. Search operations resumed, officials said.
Some 117 people remained missing after the 12-story Champlain Towers South collapsed at Surfside a week ago, but an Israeli search official put the chances of finding survivors “near zero”.
Even so, the crew were “in full search and rescue mode” by early Monday, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniela Levin Cava told a briefing, hours after the remainder of the building collapsed in a haze of smoke and dust. after.
Later at a press conference, he said another body had been pulled from the rubble, raising the death toll to 28.
She said the demolition went as planned and that searchers had found three more victims in the rubble after work resumed.
Levin Cava said officials have raised millions of dollars “thanks to the generosity of people in this country and around the world”, which will distribute funds to affected families.
Officials had halted work at the site because the unstable structure posed a threat to search and rescue teams, especially ahead of the possible arrival of Tropical Storm Elsa, probably Tuesday.
A controlled explosion can be seen toppling the rest of the Champlain South Tower at Surfside, Florida, north of Miami Beach, late on July 4, 2021.
But as workers climbed back onto the vast rubble pile, Colonel Golan Wach, the head of an elite Israeli search and rescue team, said on CNN that he had told family members that the chances of survivors were now “close.” to zero.”
The impending arrival of Tropical Storm Elsa – it struck west-central Cuba on Monday on its way to the Florida Keys – forced officials to accelerate the demolition program.
Large-scale search and rescue efforts were triggered by the collapse in the early hours of 24 June, but no survivors have been found since that day.
Experts are looking into potentially pre-existing critical flaws in the building’s structure, and are surveying other older tall buildings in the area for potential problems.