Officials said that the search and rescue efforts continue, but that no one has been found alive in the hours since Thursday’s collapse. Ten people were confirmed dead, while more than 150 others remain missing from the Surfside community, just outside Miami.
The 12-story pancake collapse left behind layers of debris and intertwined material, making it difficult to reach anyone who might have survived in a small space.
“Every action has a reaction,” Miami Dade Assistant Fire Chief Raide Jadallah stated during a press conference. It’s not a problem if we attach a few cords to a concrete rock and lift it.
He noted the dangers of the work by noting that families who rode buses to visitthe location on Sunday saw a rescuer fall 25 feet down the pile. He said that both victims and workers must be taken into consideration.
He said, “It’s going take time.” It won’t happen overnight. It’s a 12-story structure.
On Monday, relatives continued their visits. More than twenty-four family members watched as search teams excavated the building site from a nearby building. For support, some held on to each other. Others hugged each other and offered prayers. Others took photographs.
This intense effort involves firefighters, sniffer dogs, and search experts using radar or sonar devices.
A crane lifted a large slab concrete from the debris pile. This allowed rescuers wearing hard hats to enter and transport smaller pieces of debris into red buckets. These are then emptied into larger bins for a crane. Intermittent rain showers made the work more difficult, but they have now been put out.
Jimmy Patronis, Florida’s chief financial officer, and state fire marshal said that it was the largest deployment in Florida history of such resources that wasn’t due to a hurricane. He stated that the Surfside event saw the same number people on the ground as Hurricane Michael, which was a Category 5 hurricane that ravaged 12 counties in 2018.
Patronis stated, “They’re working around-the-clock.” They work 12 hours a day, from midnight to midnight to midnight.
Andy Alvarez was a deputy incident commander for Miami-Dade Fire Rescue. He said that rescuers were able to locate some spaces or voids in the wreckage, mostly in basement and parking garage.
Alvarez stated that more than 80 rescuers are currently working to breach the walls that have collapsed. This is in an effort to save those still alive and reach those voids we know exist in these buildings.
