Nearly a week after the sudden collapse of a Florida waterfront building, the death toll rose further on Wednesday to 18, including two children, while more than 140 people remain missing . And the hope of finding survivors is diminishing more and more every day.
“We found two more corpses under the rubble,” Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told a press conference on Wednesday. “It is with great regret, and a real pain that I must announce that these two people were children, 4 and 10 years old,” she added. Some 140 people are also still missing, she added. Among them are dozens of Latin Americans from Argentina, Colombia, Paraguay, Chile and Uruguay.
“Very low” hope of finding survivors
Most of the twelve-story building, named Champlain Towers, collapsed at around 1:20 a.m. in a cloud of dust on Thursday, one of the most serious urban disasters in US history.
If the rescue teams have discovered new tunnels in the rubble, the hope of finding survivors on the seventh day of the search is now very “low”. “There is no denying the current situation: it has been more than six days since the collapse and the chances of finding people alive are slim,” said Elad Edri, deputy commander of the Israeli rescue team lending a helping hand. to American rescuers since Sunday.
1,300 tons of concrete already excavated
More than 1,300 tons of concrete have already been excavated. Two large cranes are used to carefully remove the debris. Firefighters who work day and night in the heat and humidity are supported by image and sound search technologies to locate air pockets.
“We have finished mapping all the bedrooms, living rooms and places where we think the stranded people might be at the moment,” said Elad Edri. But these efforts risk being compromised by the arrival in the coming days of a tropical storm in the region.
A long investigation to determine the cause of the tragedy
A report on the condition of the building noted as early as 2018 “major structural damage”, as well as “cracks” in the basement of the building, according to documents released by the city of Surfside. The publication on Tuesday of a letter dated April from the president of the assembly of co-owners, alarmed by the state of the building, also fueled the debate as to whether the disaster could have been avoided. The building suffered from “degradation” which “accelerated”, she warned.
Local authorities have promised a “thorough” investigation into the causes of the deadly collapse, but it will likely take months.
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