Miami building collapses: Hopes of locating survivors fade

Search and rescue operations continue for Sixth day today in the ruins of the 12-storey Champlain Towers South apartment complex in Florida, where at least 11 people have lost their lives while another 150 are considered missing and are believed to have died.

Hoping to die out as the hours passed, authorities said no survivors could be found in the rubble of the 156-apartment building, part of which collapsed in the early hours of Thursday morning as residents slept.

The families of the 150 missing “Face the news that their loved ones may not be found alive, although they still hope”, Miami-Dane Mayor Daniela Levine Cava told reporters last Monday night.

“Their loved ones may be brought back dismembered,” Cava added.

Officials said Monday night that teams searching between pieces of cement and metal still considered it a search-and-rescue operation involving dogs, thermal imaging cameras and cranes.

But no one came out of the rubble alive, just hours after the building collapsed on Surfside.

Building collapse in Miami: Engineer report

This tragedy may be among the most serious accidents in the United States due to structural problems in buildings.

Two indoor corridors collapsed in the lobby of the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri during a party in July 1981, killing 114 people.

In January 1922, 98 people were killed when the roof of the Knickerbocker Theater in Washington, D.C., collapsed due to excessive snow accumulation during a movie screening.

The causes of the sudden collapse of the building in Miami, 40 years old, are being investigated, but the authorities’ attention has turned to the structural damage identified by an engineer in 2018.

The report, now published, showed that an engineer had found evidence of major structural damage under the pool and “concrete wear” in the underground car park of the 12-storey residential complex, three years before it collapsed last Thursday. Engineer Frankie Morabito had warned in his report that the damage would “expand exponentially” if not repaired.

A month later, however, Ross Prieto, a Surfside City Inspector, met with occupants of the building and assured them that the building was “in very good condition,” according to minutes of the November 2018 meeting published by US media. information.

Gene Watnicki, president of the Champlain Towers South tenants’ association, had warned them in April 2021 in a letter that the apparent damage to the concrete found three years earlier had “significantly worsened”, as well as the damage to the roof, and asked them to to pay about $ 15 million for their repair, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today reported yesterday.

Woodninki survived the collapse of the building.

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