The American media has reported an increase in the number of victims due to the collapse of a building in Florida to 9 people.
U.S. media reported on Sunday night that the death toll from a building collapse in Miami Beach, Florida, had risen to nine.
The death toll from the Miami-area condo tower collapse rose to nine as the search for survivors reached its fourth day and officials pressed ahead with efforts to investigate the cause of the failure and assess the safety of nearby buildings.
Emergency crews retrieved four additional bodies and human remains from the site of Champlain Towers South since Saturday night, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said at a news conference. They have been identified, but their names not yet released, bringing the total number of people unaccounted for to 152, she said Sunday evening.
As investigators began piecing together clues, emails released by the town Sunday included correspondence from the condo board and town officials in recent years that show concerns about nearby construction.
Search-and-rescue workers succeeded in suppressing a fire that had generated heavy smoke and inhibited their work Saturday, Ms. Levine Cava said. Six to eight squads were combing through the debris pile at any given time, with hundreds of additional crew members standing by to rotate in. They employed rescue dogs, cameras and sonar to try to find pockets of space and potential survivors.
Crews have been cutting a trench, now 125 feet long, 20 feet wide and 40 feet deep, to gain access to the depths of the rubble, Ms. Levine Cava said. That effort led to the recovery of the additional bodies. But as of Sunday morning, more than 72 hours had passed since anyone had been pulled out alive. The density of the pancaked building, compressed into a massive mound with countless layers, can appear impenetrable. Personal items such as flip-flops and neckties were visible in the debris, as were children’s bunk beds and wall art depicting a city skyline in the exposed top floors of the building.
