Death toll in condo collapse rises to 95
SURFSIDE, Fla. — Exhausted crews neared the end of their search for victims of a Miami-area condominium tower collapse Tuesday as the death toll reached 95 with just a handful of people still unaccounted for.
Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said at a news conference that the number of people considered missing has dwindled as authorities work to identify everyone connected to the building. The mayor said 14 people remain unaccounted for, which includes 10 victims whose bodies have been recovered but not yet identified — leaving potentially four more victims to be found.
“It's a scientific, methodical process to identify human remains. As we've said, this work is becoming more difficult with the passage of time,” Levine Cava said, adding that it is “truly a fluid situation.”
Of the 14 people considered not accounted for, the mayor said 12 are the subject of missing persons reports and detectives are trying to verify information about the other two.
Twenty days after the disaster, Levine Cava said crews had removed 18 million pounds of rubble from the site. Search crews were taking great care to identify and preserve any personal property recovered, the mayor added.
“They have given of their heart and soul,” Levine Cava said of the crews that have worked around the clock for nearly three weeks. “We are totally walking among superheroes.”
It will take much longer for experts to figure out what caused the 12-story Champlain Towers South condominium to fall into a tangled heap of concrete and steel on June 24. The building was set for its four-decade recertification review when it collapsed.
Engineers and others investigating the cause of the collapse have been identifying key pieces of the 40-year-old building to determine what happened, Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said.
“We're looking at how the building lines up with what the plans say,” he said.
The search for answers includes an engineer hired by the town of Surfside, a team from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, experts hired by lawyers representing families and others.
Part of the investigation will include what decisions were made by government building officials and the condominium board, which knew of serious structural problems with the tower as early as fall 2018. Some residents were reluctant to pay assessments in the tens of thousands of dollars for the repairs, leading to acrimonious board meetings.
