The Surfside building collapses at the latest: the death toll rises to 5, more remains found

The death toll in residential building collapses in Surfside, Florida has risen to five, officials said.

A body was recovered from the rubble of the Champlain Towers South condominium, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said at a press conference Saturday night.

Search and rescue workers also found “some human remains,” said the mayor. These additional remains must be identified through DNA testing; Family members have been asked to submit samples, said the mayor. Three of the deceased have been identified.

When the search continued for a third day, 156 people are still missing and 130 people will be held accountable, Levine Cava said.

The search was hampered by a deep fire in the rubble that spread and released gray smoke, although first responders made progress as the day progressed, Levine Cava said.

“Our top priority remains search and rescue and saving all the lives we can,” she said.

The cause of the building’s collapse is still unknown, the mayor said, but promised, “We will use all our local, state and federal resources to conduct a full and thorough investigation.”

Levine Cava previously announced an audit of all buildings 40 years or older to ensure that each completed the recertification process within the next 30 days. She said she was unaware of the 2018 structural report, which showed evidence of cracks and flooding late Friday.

Civil engineers are also investigating the safety of the complex’s other buildings, including the Champlain Towers East, Surfside Vice Mayor Tina Paul told ABC News on Saturday.

“Last night we received photos of the condition of the garage in the Champlain East building and it doesn’t look right, so check whether the building is secure or not,” Paul said, noting that there were chunks of pillars missing from the parking garage . “Hopefully we will get satellite information [on Sunday] It will also give us a better picture of where the weak points are, and then we will know whether we need to evacuate people or not. “

Surfside city guides held an emergency meeting on Friday evening to discuss what happened in the hours leading up to the fatal incident in Champlain Towers South and what needs to be done to avoid a similar tragedy in the future.

Commissioner Eliana Salzhauer said the city needs to increase the requirements of the recertification process, which includes a series of safety inspections that every building must conduct every 40 years. James “Jim” McGuinness, the town’s construction officer, agreed.

“Hurricane Andrew changed Florida building codes forever, so this terrible tragedy, which is a national tragedy, is going to change building codes regarding certification,” said McGuinness.

The Champlain Towers South residential complex, built in the 1980s, was pending its 40-year recertification, according to Surfside officials. Over the years it had undergone extensive inspections due to deterioration and the housing association was preparing updates and repairs.

Work has been done on the roof and the entire building has been under scrutiny due to possible construction projects nearby, officials said. Kenneth Director, an attorney for the association, said the construction plans had already been submitted to Surfside City, but the only work that had started on the roof was.

The director told ABC News that there was evidence of water damage to the complex, but this is common on oceanfront properties and would not have just caused the collapse. He said he was never warned of any structural problems with the building or the land it was built on, and when a lawsuit was filed in 2015 for water damage and cracks on the building’s exterior wall, engineers were hired to conduct the inspection process .

At the emergency meeting on Friday, McGuinness said he had been on the roof of Champlain Towers South and inspected the roof anchors 14 hours before the collapse. He said there was “no excessive amount of equipment or materials” that would cause the building to collapse.

Three years before the collapse, engineers pointed out flooding, cracks and corrosion in the building. A construction field service report from Morabito Consultants from 2018 states that, among other things, the pillars in the garage of the Champlain Towers South Condominium had been cracked and had to be replaced.

“Numerous cracks and flakes of varying degrees were observed in the concrete columns, beams and walls,” the report said. “While some of this damage is minor, most concrete damage needs to be repaired in a timely manner.”

The report also mentions that there were cracks on the apartment’s balconies and that the concrete framing slab that supported the space / pool above the garage had previously been concrete patched and epoxy injected, but the ‘work was less than satisfactory works and needs to be “completed all over again.”

In a 2018 document, Morabito Consultants, the company tasked with inspecting the 40-year recertification of the condominium, estimated the total “likely cost of renovation” to be $ 9.1 million.

This includes more than $ 3.8 million for the “refurbishment of garages, entrances and pool decks”, $ 3.2 million for “facade renovation”, $ 629,760 for “electrical building renovation” and US $ 253,824 -Dollars for the “mechanical building renovation”.

Other Champlain Towers will also be inspected after the collapse. “It would be unwise not to take steps to address this issue with the sister property,” Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said during the meeting on Friday.

The oceanfront complex had 136 units, of which about 55 were destroyed along the northeast corridor, according to Miami-Dade Fire Department assistant Raide Jadallah. The people in the remaining structure were evacuated.

About 130 firefighters have been participating in the search and rescue operations since Thursday evening, using machines, sonar devices and trained dogs to search for survivors in the rubble. First responders didn’t hear voices from the pile but picked up sounds, Jadallah said.

Levine Cava said experts, including civil engineers, were on hand to protect rescuers in the search for survivors, as work near the remaining structure was still “extreme risk.” A Miami-Dade district official told ABC News that wires were dangling from the building and fires flared up all day Friday.

“Debris falls on them as they work,” Levine Cava told reporters on Friday. “But they keep going because they are so motivated and take extraordinary risks every day on site.”

Miami-Dade Fire Rescue spokeswoman Maggie Castro drew a picture of the challenging rescue operation under way on Saturday’s Good Morning America in dealing with fires and bad weather.

“We work hard. We work 24 hours a day and we work very hard to make sure we can reach all of these sacrifices that might still lie in these ruins. We are working to bring these” people back together with theirs Families, “said Castro.

She described the “slow and methodical process” that requires rescue teams to carefully inspect debris before it can be touched.

“We search rubble, our engineers tell us this is a good way to go. We have to build retaining walls, we have to build structures that protect you as you dig through this rubble. The process of removing rubble is also a very arduous one Process because things can be leaning against each other – we remove a piece, we could cause another collapse, so it’s a very tedious process, “said Castro.

The department also uses dogs to get into confined spaces, to detect “even the slightest movement” and to sniff out the smell of possible victims.

“As soon as a dog hits a certain area, we focus our energy on that area using sonar detection, which can detect even the tiniest little scratch from someone trying to knock against a piece of metal or concrete, and then will we are slowly digging our way through this area to reach everyone who is potentially there, “Castro said.

The cause of the partial collapse remains unknown, although Levine Cava says there has been no evidence of a foul so far. Miami-Dade Police are conducting an investigation into the incident, and President Joe Biden has approved a Florida Emergency Declaration authorizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to identify, mobilize, and deploy equipment and resources at its discretion to help alleviate the impact of the emergency, “said a White House statement.

Soorin Kim and Laura Romero of ABC News contributed to this report.