Searchers found the 11th corpse in the ruins of a Florida apartment complex Reuters

Gabriella Bot

Surfside, Fla. (Reuters)-Search and rescue teams found two other bodies in the concrete and steel rubble of a collapsed apartment complex in Florida on Monday, bringing the death toll to 11, with 150 still believed to be missing .

Heavy rain and heavy cement slabs made manual searches difficult, which hindered recovery efforts.

It has been four days since a survivor was rescued from the ruins of the Champlain South Tower in Surfside, Florida. The tower collapsed suddenly on Thursday, while most residents were sleeping.

The Mayor of Miami-Dade County, Daniella Levine Cava, said at a press conference in the afternoon: “We have some people waiting, waiting, waiting. It’s too painful.” She was referring to the disappearance. Or friends and family of the deceased.

The mayor said: “They are dealing with the news that they may not have a loved one alive, but still hope that they will be alive.” “The person they love may appear in the form of body parts.”

Rescue teams are using cranes, dogs, and infrared scanners to identify signs of life in the ruins, although hope is getting bleak over time.

Some relatives of the missing have provided officials with DNA samples. On Sunday, family members were allowed to visit the site.

Raide Jadallah, assistant fire chief of Miami-Dade, said the workers found gaps large enough to keep the victims alive.

“It’s not that we saw anyone there, but we haven’t reached the bottom yet,” he said.

Jadallah said that the searcher heard some sounds, such as tapping or scratching, which may have been made by the survivor, although he admitted that they could also be caused by metal movement.

The search team includes experts sent by Israel and Mexico.

The cause of the collapse is still under investigation.

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A 2018 engineer’s report found that the concrete in the underground parking lot was seriously aging, and a slab under the pool deck was badly damaged. The author of the report, Frank Morabito, wrote that if it is not repaired, the deterioration will “expand exponentially”.

According to the meeting minutes released on Monday, Ross Prieto, then Surfside’s top construction official, met with residents the following month after reviewing the report and assured them that the building was in “very good condition.”

After the meeting, Prieto sent an email to the town manager, saying, “It’s going well…all the major problems in their 40-year recertification process have been resolved.”

Reuters could not reach Prieto, who is no longer employed by Surfside. He told the Miami Herald that he did not remember receiving this report.

The engineer’s report was commissioned as an apartment, built in 1981, seeking re-certification, which is required for a 40-year-old building. An estimate prepared by Morabito Consultants in 2018 indicated that the cost of repairs was US$9.1 million.

In 2018, Surfside town manager Guillermo Olmedillo told Reuters that he did not remember hearing about structural issues.

“The last thing I know is that the construction official reported that everything is fine,” Olmediro said.

Greg Schlesinger, a lawyer and former general contractor who specializes in building failure cases, said that the flaws identified in the 2018 report were clearly the main cause of the disaster.

But Donna DiMaggio Berger, a lawyer working with the apartment association, said that these problems are typical of old buildings in the area and did not shock the board members, who all live in the tower with their families.

Morabito Consultants said on Saturday that the roof was under repair when it collapsed, but concrete repair work has not yet begun.

The company said: “We are deeply disturbed by the collapse of this building and are working closely with the investigating authorities to understand the reasons for the failure of the structure.”

The police have confirmed the identities of the eight dead, including a couple who had been married for nearly 60 years and a mother whose teenage son was one of the few known survivors.

At a temporary memorial one block away, posters commemorating the dead and the “missing” were hung on the chain fence, flowers and children’s toys were scattered all over the place.

Given that dozens of people are still missing, this disaster may eventually become one of the deadliest unintentional structural failures in American history.

In January 1922, the roof of the Knickerbocker Theater in Washington, DC collapsed due to the weight of snow during a film screening, killing 98 people.

In July 1981, at a party at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri, two indoor walkways collapsed, killing 114 people.