Four persons have died as 159 others are still missing after a seaside condominium tower collapsed into a smouldering heap of twisted metal and concrete in Surfside, Florida.
Gatekeepers News reports that rescuers, in an increasingly desperate search for survivors, used both heavy equipment and their hands to search through the wreckage on Friday.
Scores of firefighters rushed to the scene when it happened on Thursday morning as their hopes depend on how swiftly crews using dogs and microphones could complete their sensitive task.
“Any time that we hear a sound, we concentrate in that area,” Miami-Dade Assistant Fire Chief Raide Jadallah said.
“It could be just steel twisting, it could be debris raining down, but not specifically sounds of tapping or sounds of a human voice.”
Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said crews were doing everything possible to save as many people as they could.
“We do not have a resource problem, we have a luck problem,” he said.
Gatekeepers News reports that officials still cannot ascertain the exact number of residents or visitors in the building when it collapses, but they are trying to locate 159 people who were considered unaccounted for and may or may not have been there.
The cause of the building collapse could not be ascertained as of Friday morning as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said: “We have to figure out: Why did this happen?”
“That answer isn’t necessarily apparent right now, but it will be identified,” he said.
“And I think that anyone who was affected by this directly wants that answer, but also, we need to know: Is this a bigger issue or is this something unique to the building?”
