Leer en Español
Authorities reported Wednesday the discovery of six more bodies in the Surfside building collapse bringing the official death toll from the incident to 18.
At a press conference, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said that after the removal of the six bodies and the cross-checking of information between different agencies, the number of missing persons now stands at 147 and the number of people found at 139.
Both the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, and the mayor of Miami-Dade, referred to how the tropical waves advancing towards the Caribbean can affect the search efforts at the site of the collapse.
DeSantis recalled that we are in hurricane season and they are taking “very seriously” the systems that are on their way, so they will take the “necessary measures in case they have to respond.”
The mayor mentioned that the harsh weather has accompanied the search and rescue tasks since the beginning, but has not interrupted them and that is how it is going to continue.
“We are going to do everything humanly possible to move forward and we are going to do it together,” Levine Cava said.
One of the heads of the rescue teams said he has requested an additional team, which would arrive today, to the eight already present and other measures to respond to a possible cyclone.
In Florida, emergency control teams are used to working in “multiple emergency” situations.
The oceanfront portion of the Champlain Towers condominium collapsed in the early morning hours of June 24, reducing more than 50 of its 136 units to rubble, and rescue crews have been scrambling to find possible survivors ever since.
The mayor said today that they will cooperate with a grand jury investigation, which is what the county’s District Attorney’s Office plans to request while continuing the commissioned audit of buildings over four stories and 40 years old or older.
The audits and meetings with experts they are holding, Levine Cava said, seek to “ensure that a tragedy like this never happens again.”
