Newsman: The death toll rises as massive search and rescue mission continued since the partial collapse of the Champlain Towers building in Surfside, Miami Dade County, Florida. The search and rescue mission continued into its fourth day on Sunday.
Officials said, four more bodies were recovered overnight from the rubble of the Champlain Towers South condominium. The death toll is now nine. Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said additional human remains have also been recovered and DNA testing will be required to identify those remains. No survivors have been discovered in the wreckage of the building since early Thursday morning when Stacie Fang, 54, and her 15-year-old son were pulled from the debris alive, Cava said. Fang later died at a hospital.
Four of the bodies recovered were identified by police Sunday night, including Leon Oliwkowicz, 80; Luis Bermudez, 26; Anna Ortiz, 46; and Christina Beatriz Elvira, 74.
Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said at a news conference Sunday morning more than 150 people remain unaccounted for. As of Sunday evening, 134 residents of the 40-year-old building have been accounted for, the mayor said. Cava urged any family that has a missing member to contact detectives and provide a DNA sample to help with identifications.
“It is very important that if you are missing a loved one, you report it,” she said.
Collapse of a 12-story condominium , Florida that buckled and gave way into a pancaking catastrophe around 1:30 a.m. on Thursday as many residents were asleep, Mayor Cava said.
Miami-Dade County Fire Chief Alan Cominsky said rescuers are still hoping to find survivors waiting to be saved in crevices and voids in the pile of concrete, twisted metal and personal belongings.
“Hope. That’s what I’m focused on,” Cominsky said. “We’re going to continue moving and searching as hard as we can and for as long as we can until we have to make that decision.”
Just after 2 p.m. on Sunday, relatives of those still unaccounted for boarded several city transit buses at a hotel where a family reunification center has been established. They were escorted by police to an area near the site of the collapsed building to privately pray and hold vigils for their missing loved ones.
The grim news on Sunday came after desperate loved ones of people missing confronted officials at a private briefing Saturday night, telling them “you are not doing enough.”
“Imagine if your children were in there,” one woman told Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other government officials at the meeting, according to a cellphone video obtained by ABC News.
“I know you’re doing everything you can, but it’s not enough,” the anguished woman added. “You gave us a promise and you’re not fulfilling it, and you can fulfill it. My daughter is dying.”
Mayor Cava said firefighters managed to contain an out-of-control blaze that had been burning deep in the rubble, hampering rescue efforts. She said the fire was contained around noon on Saturday.
She also said emergency teams have cut a 125-foot long, 20-foot wide and 40-foot deep trench through the rubble to help enhance the search.
DeSantis cautioned that “a lot of major debris” is soon going to be removed from the site and moved to a giant warehouse.
“The debris that gets out does have forensic value and so that’s going to be parsed once it’s taken,” DeSantis said.
Cava said six to eight rescue squads comprised of about 300 first-responders have been sifting through the debris in shifts around the clock, searching for survivors and human remains. She said hundreds of other search and rescue team members were on standby to relieve workers as they come off the pile.
Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said the Israeli Homefront Command Team and a rescue unit from Mexico have also joined the search.
Burkett said during a meeting Sunday with loved ones of those still unaccounted for, that one of the relatives asked if the Israeli team thought that the Miami-Dade rescuers “had been doing the right thing.”
“The commander from the Israeli team did not hesitate and turned around and said, ‘They’ve been doing exactly the right thing,'” Burkett said.
Burkett added that residents of the tower adjacent to the one that collapsed have been evacuated and put up in hotels. He said residents of the nearby Champlain Towers North building have also been given the choice to evacuate.
The cause of the collapse is under investigation. The building had been undergoing renovations and roof work at the time of the collapse, officials said.
A 2018 Structural Field Survey report released by the city of Surfside found major structural damage to concrete structural slabs and failed waterproofing in parts of the tower.
A newly released email confirms that a Surfside Building Department official met with Champlain Towers South residents in 2018, just weeks after an engineering report identified “significant structural damage” to the building.
