Condo collapse deaths rise to 60 as rescue shifts to recovery

Surfside, Florida CNN —

The death toll in a condo building collapse in Surfside, Florida, has risen to 60, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said, after authorities made the decision to shift the search effort from rescue to recovery.

Eighty people are “potentially unaccounted for,” the mayor said in a news conference Thursday morning, two weeks after the Champlain Towers South condo building collapse, which is among the deadliest mass casualty building collapses in US history, not including acts of terror or fires.

Authorities transitioned to search and recovery at midnight overnight, after determining “the viability of life in the rubble” was low, Miami-Dade County Fire Chief Alan Cominsky said Wednesday.

Still, Levine Cava said Thursday the recovery effort is “proceeding just as rapidly with just as many people on the pile,” and authorities are “taking as much care as ever” to find victims.

“We are working around the clock to recover victims and to bring closure to the families as fast as we possibly can,” she said.

Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett, however, said authorities still hope for the best.

“We are still praying for a miracle,” he said. “We haven’t given up all hope.”

How to help Surfside victims

A moment of silence

Search and recovery teams paused work around 1:20 a.m. to honor the victims, the mayor said.

At the edge of the rubble, first responders, officials, faith leaders and journalists bowed their heads for a moment of silence Wednesday evening, honoring those who lost their lives under the debris.

The scene was largely monochromatic: gray concrete, gray dry wall, gray rebar and gray dust still on the paws of a search dog who stood at attention for the moment of silence.

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

People lift their hands during a prayer at the memorial site for victims of the collapsed condo building.

But color could be found just around the corner, where a makeshift shrine adorned the fence of a tennis court with flowers, photos and a sign that read, “Miami-Dade Search and Rescue mourns with you.”

Faith leaders offered prayers, and at one point an impromptu religious procession unfolded as sisters in brown robes lit candles and marched with a priest holding a statue of Our Lady of Fatima.

The way the building collapsed gave people inside the lowest probability of survival, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Assistant Fire Chief of Operations Raide Jadallah said Wednesday, referring to it as a “pancake.”

“The other factors that we have to include, you know, the fact that we did not get in the alert (from) a K-9, a sensor trip forward, sound, and any visual utilizing our cameras. The last known alert that we received was in the initial hours the day of the collapse,” Jadallah said.

Jose A Iglesias/Pool/Getty Images

Members of search and rescue teams gather for a moment of silence and prayer at the memorial to the victims in the collapsed 12-story Champlain Towers South condo building.

Surfside urges condos to hire engineers, inspect foundations

Condo associations in Surfside will soon receive letters signed by the town mayor advising them to take steps to give residents confidence their buildings are safe.

The Town of Surfside shared a copy of the letter with CNN. It provides recommendations for all buildings east of Collins Avenue, regardless of the age of the building, including retaining a structural engineer to review structural drawings and perform a basement review, as well as a geotechnical engineer to review the foundation.

“The recommendations are made in an abundance of caution based on the current status of the investigation,” the letter said. “They are intended to serve as an interim methodology to afford residents some peace of mind until the forensic investigation progresses further.”

The town hired Allyn Kilsheimer of KCE Engineering, a structural engineering firm, to lead the investigation into what caused the collapse. The investigation is ongoing, per the letter.

City and county officials have launched audits and inspections of residential condo buildings in the surrounding areas, and so far, three have generated concern.

One in Miami-Dade County had an issue with four balconies. Another in Miami Beach required the evacuation of a three-story building.

The largest impact has been in North Miami Beach, where all 156 units of Crestview Towers south were evacuated Friday after officials there said the building was deemed structurally and electrically unsafe.

In the hours following the evacuations, about 300 people were without a place to live, according to Ron Book, the chairman of the Miami-Dade Homeless Trust.

“It’s grab what you can grab, what you can put in a suitcase, what you can put in a shopping bag or carry in your arms and move along,” said Book. “That’s what they had to deal with.”

Book says families were first provided immediate shelter at the Miami-Dade County Fair and Exposition’s E. Darwin Fuchs Pavilion and then were placed in hotels. But as more and more buildings are inspected, Book fears there could be an increase in homelessness.

The chairman said, “I don’t know what the future holds but I am concerned as I have ever been that we will not have the resources, the housing resources to take care of those that we need to take care of.”