More than a day after the wing of Champlain Tower South suddenly collapsed in the middle of the night, rescue crews continued to dig through piles of rubble and twisted metal more than 30 feet high Friday morning with the unlikely hope of finding at least one survivor.
The 12-story residential condo in beachside town of Surfside, about 6 miles north of Miami Beach, collapsed around 1:03 a.m. Thursday. Officials said the collapse affected 55 out of the building’s 136 units.
As of Thursday evening, officials said 102 people were identified and declared safe. Rescuers pulled at least 35 people from the wreckage in the first hours after the collapse, including a young boy pulled from the rubble.
Mayor Charles Burkett said the building “literally pancaked” during a press conference. Officials have not pinpointed a definitive cause for the collapse, but at this point, there is no evidence to indicate that it was a result of foul play, Miami Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told “Good Morning America.”
President Joe Biden approved a Florida emergency declaration early Friday. FEMA was authorized to identify, mobilize and provide equipment and resources to alleviate the impacts of the emergency, a White House statement read.
Rubble hangs from a partially collapsed building in Surfside north of Miami Beach, on June 24, 2021.
Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images
What we know about the missing
A massive search and rescue operation was launched before dawn and crews are still carefully combing through the wreckage and remaining structure in hopes of finding survivors.
A Miami-Dade county official told ABC News it’s been difficult to determine how many people were in the collapsed section of the building, partly due to the fact that there isn’t an on-scene management company that keeps track. The condominium is a mix of full-time residents, seasonal residents, renters and short-term visitors, so authorities have been relying largely on neighbors and word of mouth.
The Champlain Towers South drew a considerable amount of foreigners, according to Sen. Marco Rubio, R-FL.
The Paraguayan president’s sister-in-law and her family are among the missing, the country’s foreign ministry confirmed. The first lady’s sister Sophia Lopez Moreira, her husband Luis Pettengill, their three unidentified children and nanny Lady Luna Villalba were in the building at the time of the collapse, officials said.
Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela and Paraguay all reported foreign nationals lived in the building.
Raide Jadallah, an assistant Miami-Dade County fire chief, said that while listening devices placed on and in the wreckage had picked up no voices, they had detected possible banging noises, giving rescuers hope some are alive. Rescuers were tunneling into the wreckage from below, going through the building’s underground parking garage.
The official told ABC News that there’s real concern about the structural integrity of the remaining building, particularly from dangling wires and portions of concrete. Fires have flared up throughout the day, adding to the danger for the search and rescue teams, the official said.
Many people remained at the reunification center set up near the collapse site early Friday morning, awaiting results of DNA swabs that could help identify victims.
Investigation into the collapse
The cause of the Champlain Tower South collapse was unknown. The Miami-Dade Police Department is leading an investigation into the incident.
The seaside condo development was built in 1981 in the southeast corner of Surfside. It had a few two-bedroom units currently on the market, with asking prices of $600,000 to $700,000.
Surfside Commissioner Nelly Velasquez told ABC News that the building was up for its 40-year recertification.
The Champlain Towers South Condo Association was preparing to start a new construction project to make updates and the condominium had been through extensive inspections, according to Kenneth Direktor, a lawyer for the association. Direktor said that he hadn’t been warned of any structural issues with the building or about the land it was built on. He said there was water damage to the complex, but that is common for oceanfront properties and wouldn’t have caused the collapse.
“Nothing like this has ever been seen, at least not in the 40 years I’ve been doing this,” Direktor told ABC News.
ABC Owned Television Stations and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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