The search continues for survivors two days after a 12-story beachfront condominium building collapsed just north of Miami, killing at least four people and leaving 159 more unaccounted for.
Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett told USA TODAY the rescue efforts will continue "until we pull everybody we can out of that rubble."
"We will not stop," he said. "You can count on us to continue this search until we find every person who's alive in that rubble."
Photos of the missing hung on a fence near the rubble late Friday as a burning electrical smell filled the air. A fire continued to burn beneath the rubble, officials said, despite efforts to put it out.
Around 1:30 a.m. Thursday, a wing of the residential building in Surfside, Florida, came down with a roar. Video footage captured from nearby showed the center of the building appearing to fall first, with a section nearest the ocean teetering and coming down seconds later as a huge dust cloud swallowed the neighborhood.
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#miami #surfside #condocollapse
🙏🙏🙏
It’s beginning to be clear why this building suffered catastrophic failure. And it doesn’t look good for the condo owners association nor the building authorities.
It was known three years ago that there was widespread deterioration of concrete and steel reinforcements in the building that needed immediate attention.
It looks like a very serious case of neglect especially by the condo association, by allowing the deterioration to continue unabated for so long resulting in this tragic loss of life and well being of their own members. No winners here.
@Sad cat I know, but its true. What goes up defective WILL come down. The things I Observed the Trades “corner cutting” would give even the bravest the chills.
So many are in deep doo. Some may face jail . But they will pay
@City Nat it’s less a case of regulations than the lack of responsibility by the owners of the building, in this case, the condo owners association. They should have acted responsibly when they were notified of the deterioration in the building by the engineers. In all likelihood the board didn’t act to remedy the problem because of the considerable economic burden to the owners.
Additionally it’s possibles that the original developer and general contractor did a substandard job in waterproofing, a critical requirement in concrete buildings, especially in coastal areas where salt in the environment rapidly corrodes exposed steel.
In the later case the building inspection seems to have not been thorough enough to have called attention to these deficiencies during the construction phase. Therefore it’s not the lack of regulations but the inadequate enforcement of them.
@Merlin Cat you got that right. It’s money.
The original developer and general contractor did a crappy cheap job to begin with and later when the condo owners association found out how things were falling apart they knew it was going to have a big impact on resale values as well as raising condo fees to budget for a super expensive repair job. So everybody kept mum. The smart ones sold quickly but may now face lawsuits for fraud for non-disclosure. No winners here, everybody loses. Except for the lawyers. Justice is going to be expensive.
@City Nat wrong. someone tried saving a buck . Thats why this happened.
This is so sad.
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This type of situation is the worst. Because every minute that passes means someone might die. But it takes time to search in the rubble due to the difficulty and the danger of it.
Dios estas aqui, dio bendigas.
This situation is so sad..especially for the people that are possibly still alive but stuck under the wreckage..so sad.
Yeah especially when you consider that some may have survived initially but died from suffocation.
And this is why insurance companies don’t want to touch Florida!
I wouldn’t want to be the owner of that building!
I wouldn’t be able to live with myself
Hello
An update of an update. I feel like each update is the same thingggg. How many people have they rescued from the 159?
I was thinking the same thing. Everytime there’s an update they have the same numbers….159. I have a feeling they know it’s more than 4 ppl that perished but don’t want to disclose it…..yet
Well this is hard work. Have you seen the remains of the building? Those are huge chunks of concrete. What do you expect?
They need to start finding any surviors or something else repeating the same thing over and over bring in more heavy cranes one or two is not enough people just walking with buckets no digging
Hello
@City Nat they are supposed to have 10 different agencies and fema and I’ve only seen 10 people carry one blue bucket back and forth
❓So what’s the name of the developer❓ The public deserves/needs to know.
Nathan Reiber
Was ocean Water used to mid The Concrete. Look Like it. Quick Cheap Finnish. Going over Budget?
This is truly tragic! It’s crazy what people pay for just to die out of incompetence and neglect from officials that have the power to prevent loss of life.
Regulation is written in our 🩸– but NO ONE WANTS TO PAY taxes + give up predatory profits. So sad.
reporter: how many stuctures in the state and the county have been audited for structrual damage
mayor: well get you that number later
me: ill help you with that, ALL OF THEM BUILT BEFORE HURRICANE KATRINA MORONS YOUR COSTING PEOPLES LIVES
Why don’t recusers have masks on with oxygen? The dust will be fatal for recusers….look at firefighters from 911, they are all dying now from exposure. 🦺🧯⛑️🦺🧯🧑🚒🧑🚒🧑🚒🧑🚒
Blah Blah Blah. That entire force was built off of nepotism. Trust me, maybe only 1 person knows what that are doing and he is probably from Haiti and marginalized.
I bet this will have a major impact on vacation hotels, and future building requirements in Florida. Not that it’s a realistic fear but any large old building that fear is there.
Yup
what no one dares to say yet is that probably 100% of those “missing” are probably dead. In the coming days reality will sink in. Even if someone somehow survived the collapse between smoke, fires and dehydration by now they should be dead.
There is so much love. There is so much sadness. There is a magnificent greatness in human beings when they are called upon.
Thank you for answering the call.
God bless you all.
Beautifully Said. Thank you
Simple building inspectors are on the take.
It is all about money.
Management ignored all those complaints for the last 7 years by the condo owners.
do the rooms have to be at equal temperatures for expansion and contraction.