Search efforts at the collapsed Miami-area condominium complex shifted to a recovery operation on Wednesday as authorities now expect few, if any, survivors to be pulled from the rubble in the coming days.
Miami-Dade Assistant Fire Chief Raide Jadallah told afflicted families that it will be nearly impossible to pull living people from the pile following an intensive 14-day operation at what’s left of the 12-story Champlain Towers South in Surfside, according to the Associated Press. The grim announcement from Jadallah followed efforts to explore new areas of rubble after the decision was made to demolish the standing portion of the structure earlier in the week before Tropical Storm Elsa made landfall in Florida.
Rescuers, who had hoped to find survivors, were instead tasked with removing 10 more bodies from the site, bringing the total death toll to 46 as of Wednesday afternoon. Ninety-four people are still believed to be trapped within the rubble, and multiple children have been found dead in the complex, including the 7-year-old daughter of a first responder who was parsing through the pile.
HERE’S WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE SURFSIDE CONDO COLLAPSE SO FAR
“Our commitment to this mission is deeply personal,” Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said in a press conference on Wednesday. “This is our community, our neighbors, our families. And our first responders have truly searched that pile every single day since the collapse as if they’re searching for their own loved ones.”
Miami-Dade Fire Chief Alan Cominsky said “every effort” has been attempted to locate survivors.
“Obviously, it’s very difficult,” he said. “We’ve been exhausting every effort, and that’s where we are right now, is exhausting every effort, and we’ll go from there.”
Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett held out hope over the weekend that rescue operations could last longer.
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“It is absolutely not a recovery effort,” he said in a Sunday interview on CBS. “I’m constantly telling people about the BBC documentary which outlines survivability after a collapse, where they pulled a lady in Bangladesh out after 17 days. We’re not even near that.”
Questions have been raised about the cause of the Champlain Towers South collapse after the city of Surfside released a trove of records indicating that the building needed extensive repairs in addition to having “major structural damage” in both 2018 and 2020. Video footage from moments before the structure was reduced to rubble appeared to show a water leak and debris in the complex’s parking garage.
