Death toll rises to 18 in Florida condo collapse, scores still missing as search and rescue continues

The death toll in the collapse of a Florida condominium building rose to 18, with 145 people still unaccounted for, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said at a press conference Wednesday afternoon.

Two of the confirmed deaths are children, ages four and ten, according to Levine Cava.

“Our detectives have been working around the clock to reach every single person who we have been told may be missing,” Levine Cava told reporters.

The likelihood of finding more people alive in the wreckage continued to diminish as first responders’ painstaking search-and-rescue efforts enter day seven. No survivors have been pulled from the site since a few hours after nearly half of Champlain Towers South, a 40-year-old, 136-unit condo building, caved in last Thursday.

“Please join me in continuing to pray for those who’ve lost their lives in this unthinkable tragedy, and all of their families who are grieving,” Levine Cava said at the press conference. 

Levine Cava announced that the National Hurricane Center released projections for a possible category 5 tropical cyclone moving northwest across the Caribbean Sea, adding that authorities are monitoring the storm closely.

While it is too soon to determine the potential impacts of the storm on the state, Florida Division of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie outlined contingency plans for such severe weather that could further delay search-and-rescue operations at the site. 

The division has asked the federal government for an additional rescue team to pursue the search through the rubble, which would allow other teams that have been working at the site to rotate out, according to Guthrie. He added that the division is developing a system that would provide facility relocation assistance, communications and “backup plans” for responding to both the building collapse and a tropical storm. 

“The state emergency response team is extremely experienced in managing multiple disasters at one time,” Guthrie told reporters.

The specific cause of the cave-in is still unknown.

In the wake of the collapse, Surfside authorities released a 2018 survey report in which an engineer warned that the building had shown signs of “major structural damage,” noting issues with waterproofing beneath the pool and cracking in the underground parking garage. 

A letter from the Champlain Towers South Board President Jean Wodnicki two months before the collapse also warned about the building’s structural issues, pointing to accelerating “concrete deterioration” that had worsened since the 2018 report.

Levine Cava said her team is collaborating with subject matter experts to launch an investigation into the collapse and develop recommendations for building processes at the local level to “ensure that this tragedy can never happen again.”

Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/30/florida-condo-collapse-scores-still-missing-on-day-7-of-rescue.html