The official death toll in the Miami-area building collapse increased to at least nine people, according to officials, as rescue crews continued to hunt through the rubble.
The mayor of Surfside, Fla. emphasized that the first priority of rescue teams is to find the 152 building occupants who are still missing and reunite them with their families. Temporary housing will be provided for tenants in a sister building as an “army of engineers” works to commence a “top to bottom” analysis of its infrastructure.
The sister building, Champlain Towers North, which Burkett said “was built around same time by same contractor with same plans and probably with the same materials,” will get a full review starting next week.
“Our first priority and our only priority is to pull our residents out of that rubble and reunite them with their family who are understandably out of their minds with emotion, sadness, anger and just confused and want to know what’s happening,” Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said. “Our duty is to continue to do our jobs, which is to find their loved ones and reunited them.”
“Buildings don’t fall down in America,” he continued. “That is a third-world phenomenon. The last time we saw something like this — well we had two sections of building fall down pancake style separately, and then you saw the fire. It’s very reminiscent of something we’ve seen in New York. It’s very disturbing. There was something obviously very, very wrong in this building and we need to get to the bottom of it.”
“We don’t know why that building fell down and we need to get in and understand what’s going on with the sister building,” the mayor added. “We are going to make alternate housing available for any resident who really doesn’t want to be in that building pending that investigation which is going to commence next week with what I would say an army of engineers to get in there and pour over that building from top to bottom.”
