Susana Alvarez fled her home on the 10th floor of Champlain Towers South, escaping with her life and almost nothing else. “I don’t have anything,” said the 62-year-old survivor of the condominium building collapse just outside Miami. “I walked out with my pajamas and my phone.” The disaster that killed at least 18 people, with more than 140 still missing, also rendered dozens of people homeless. Many lost cars, too, buried in the building’s underground parking garage. Though most who managed to flee to safety lived in parts of the building that remain standing, they have little hope of returning to reclaim clothing, computers, jewelry and sentimental possessions they left behind. Read:Devastated condo community looks to Biden visit for comfort Officials said Thursday they’re making plans for the likely demolition of all parts of the building that didn’t collapse. The announcement came after search and rescue operations were paused for hours because of growing signs the structure was dangerously unstable. Alvarez is still dealing with the trauma. She hasn’t slept in a bed since the collapse a week ago. Instead she’s been sleeping in a chair, constantly thinking of the victims who couldn’t escape. She still hears the screams from that night. “I lost everything,” Alvarez said, “and it doesn’t mean anything to me.” Still, friends and even complete strangers have been helping replace what she’s lost. Friends she’s staying with outfitted her with new clothes and a computer. An eyeglass store refilled her prescription, even though she never called it in. And she got the last condo in a 16-unit building that was opened up rent-free to Surfside survivors for the month of July. It’s unclear exactly how many residents have been displaced, but those with insurance policies should recoup at least a portion of their losses. Victims also appear likely to get some money from the liability insurer for Champlain Towers South’s condominium association, which has at least four lawsuits pending related to the collapse. An attorney for James River Insurance Company wrote to the judge in one case this week that it plans to “voluntarily tender its entire limit” from the association’s policy toward resolving claims. An attached copy of the policy showed limits between $1 million and $2 million. Michael Capponi, the president of a Miami-area nonprofit that for the past decade has helped victims of disasters from hurricanes to wildfires in the U.S. and abroad, said he has personally dealt with 50 people who lost homes in the building. Read:Latest victims in condo tower collapse include 2 children Capponi’s organization, Global Empowerment Mission, has distributed roughly $75,000 in gift cards among surfside survivors, and he’s also working with hotel and condo owners to find places they can live for the next two months. Most people who have contacted his nonprofit for help lived in the part that is still standing but assume their homes and anything inside are a complete loss. “They are going to basically have to start all over again,” Capponi said. “Some of them don’t have insurance, and they’ve lost everything they worked all their lives for.” Raysa Rodriguez, a retired postal worker who lived at Champlain Towers South for 17 years and was close to paying off her mortgage, described in a lawsuit she filed against the condominium association how crashing sounds roused her from bed the night of the collapse. “The building swayed like a sheet of paper. ... I ran to the balcony. I (opened) the doors and a wall of dust hit me,” she said in the filing. Rodriguez helped neighbors escape to a second-floor balcony where firefighters helped them to the ground. Now she has moved in with family members and assumes what’s left of the building will be torn down with no chance to recover belongings. “She lived there for a long time,” said Adam Schwartzbaum, her attorney, “and she was planning to live there for the rest of her life.” Ryan Logan, the American Red Cross’ regional disaster officer for south Florida, said the organization has been helping about 18 families, and some of them have been looking for ways they can help other victims. Read:Florida officials pledge multiple probes into condo collapse “These folks that we are serving, who we know they are having the worst experience of their lives, are turning around and asking you what can they do to serve,” Logan said. “It’s nothing short of amazing.” Gabriel Nir narrowly escaped a first-floor apartment with his mother and 15-year-old sister. The family had just moved in six months ago. Nir, a recent college graduate, was living there while he looked for a job and considered medical school. For now they are staying at a nearby hotel, the floor of their room cluttered with items donated by friends and strangers. They have no luggage. Their car was destroyed in the building’s garage. But all the material possessions they lost can be replaced, he said. “I’m just grateful I made it out alive with my family,” Nir said.

Elected officials pledged Tuesday to conduct multiple investigations into the collapse of an oceanfront Florida condo tower, vowing to convene a grand jury and to look closely “at every possible angle” to prevent any other building from experiencing such a catastrophic failure. Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said she and her staff will meet with engineering, construction and geology experts, among others, to review building safety issues and develop recommendations “to ensure a tragedy like this will never, ever happen again.” State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said she will pursue a grand jury investigation to examine factors and decisions that led to Thursday’s collapse of the 12-story Champlain Towers South in Surfside. Another victim was recovered Tuesday, bringing the confirmed death toll to 12, with 149 people unaccounted for. Even as officials looked to the future to determine the cause of the collapse, they were resolute in vowing to continue the effort to find survivors. Read:‘Our backyard’: Tragedy strikes home for Miami-Dade rescuers On the sixth day of a painstaking search, Gov. Ron DeSantis evoked a well-known military commitment to leave no one behind on the battlefield and pledged to do the same for the people still missing in the rubble. “The way I look at it, as an old Navy guy, is when somebody is missing in action, in the military, you’re missing until you’re found. We don’t stop the search,” DeSantis said at a news conference. “I think that’s what is happening. Those first responders are breaking their backs trying to find anybody they can. I think they are going to continue to do that. They’ve been very selfless. They’ve put themselves at risk to do it.” Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett cited the case of a woman who was found alive 17 days after a garment factory collapsed in 2013, killing more than 1,000 people in Dhaka, Bangladesh. “No one is giving up hope here. ... We are dedicated to getting everyone out of that pile of rubble,” Burkett said. Also Tuesday, the White House announced that President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden would travel to Surfside on Thursday. Martin Langesfeld, whose sister, 26-year-old Nicole Langesfeld, is missing in the collapse, also expressed hope that there are still survivors. “We’re not alone in this. There’s hope. I really believe miracles do happen. Things like this have happened around the world,” he said during a vigil Monday night on the beach near the collapsed building. The collapse has drawn scrutiny of the safety of older high-rise buildings throughout South Florida. Cava ordered a 30-day audit on whether buildings 40 years old or older are complying with a required recertification of their structural integrity, and that any issues raised by inspections are being addressed. On Tuesday, the mayor said building inspections have found four balconies in one building in Miami-Dade County that “must be immediately closed due to safety concerns.” Read:‘Excruciating:’ Florida collapse search stretches to Day 6 Previous grand juries in South Florida have examined other large-scale disasters, such as the 2018 collapse of a pedestrian bridge at Florida International University, which killed six people. That investigation is ongoing. Criminal charges in such matters are possible, such as the third-degree felony murder and manslaughter charges brought in the 1996 crash of ValuJet Flight 592, which killed 110 people in the Everglades. Work at the site has been deliberate and treacherous. Debris fell onto the search area overnight from the shattered edge of the part of the building that still stands. That forced rescuers to mark a “don’t go beyond here” line and focus their efforts on parts of the debris pile that are farther from the structure, Burkett told Miami television station WSVN. Kevin Guthrie of the Florida Division of Emergency Management said his agency requested an additional search team. He said state officials want to rotate some of their teams out so they can be on hand in case of severe weather in the coming days. Several members of an Israeli rescue team worked partly on hands and knees Tuesday over a small section of the rubble, digging with shovels, pickaxes and saws. They removed debris into buckets that were dumped into a metal construction bin, which was periodically lifted away by a crane. The crane then delivered an empty bin. Late in the afternoon, rescue officials sounded a horn for a second time during the day’s work, signaling an approaching storm with lightning. Workers temporarily evacuated. Authorities said it’s still a search-and-rescue operation, but no one has been found alive since hours after the collapse on Thursday. The pancake collapse of the building left layer upon layer of intertwined debris, frustrating efforts to reach anyone who may have survived in a pocket of space. An earlier report uncovered cracking and spalling of concrete columns, beams and walls.Authorities meet frequently with families to explain what they’re doing and to answer questions. They have discussed how DNA matches are made to help identify the dead, how next-of-kin will be contacted and explained in “extreme detail” how they are searching the mound, the mayor said. With that knowledge, Cava said, families are coming to their own conclusions. Read:Florida condo collapse: Death toll climbs to 11, 150 still missing “Some are feeling more hopeful, some less hopeful, because we do not have definitive answers. We give them the facts. We take them to the site,” she said. “They have seen the operation. They understand now how it works, and they are preparing themselves for news, one way or the other.” Rachel Spiegel, whose 66-year-old mother, Judy Spiegel, is missing, said Tuesday that she was hoping for a miracle, but she also wrote about looking beyond the tragedy. “Our mom Judy was the glue that kept our family together. All of the family mementos, photos, clothing and heirlooms our father and mother have collected over the past 65 years were lost in a matter of seconds,” Spiegel wrote in a message about setting up a fund for charities on behalf of her mother. “As we continue to search for meaning in this catastrophe, we must also look to the future and rebuild.” In a text message exchange with The Associated Press, she added, “Please keep praying for a miracle.”

Search and rescue teams from Miami-Dade are considered among the best and most experienced in the world, dispatched to epic disaster scenes far beyond Florida — from the rubble of the World Trade Center to earthquake-ravaged Haiti, Mexico and the Philippines. This time disaster struck at home. The rescuers are searching urgently for the scores of souls buried beneath the fallen 12-story wing of the Champlain Towers condo building. As of Tuesday afternoon, more than five days after the collapse, the death toll stood at 12, with 149 people unaccounted for. “It’s personal,” said Miami-Dade County’s former fire chief, Dave Downey, a 37-year veteran of the department who retired two years ago but joined the search. Read:‘Excruciating:’ Florida collapse search stretches to Day 6 “I’d much rather be giving help than asking for help, but right now it’s in our own backyard,” he said from a command trailer near the pile of broken concrete and twisted metal. Crews from across Florida and from Mexico and Israel have descended on Surfside to join the effort. More than 400 rescue workers are at the scene, rotating in and out from the rubble every 45 minutes during 12-hour shifts. At any given time, six or seven squads — each with six members — tramp over the mountain of debris or tunnel into it. The search for survivors continued amid anguished pleas from family for rescuers to work more quickly. On-and-off downpours have not stopped the crews. Nor did a smoky fire smoldering deep within the ruins. The oppressive Florida heat hasn’t helped either. The current fire chief, Alan Cominsky, grew emotional as he talked about the first hours after emergency crews arrived at the horrifying scene early Thursday. “Wow, wow. The rescue efforts that we did, what we went through, going on those initial first hours in this environment at 1:30 in the morning,” he said. “So, I’m just trying to emphasize the magnitude of what we’re encountering, what were seeing. And we still keep pushing forward.” Joseph A. Barbera, an expert at George Washington University on search and rescue, crossed paths with a team from Miami-Dade in 1990 while advising rescuers in the Philippines. “They have a very strong reputation,” said Barbera, noting that the Miami-Dade search and rescue task force predates many of the other teams put in place in the United States and internationally. “I’m very confident that they will continue to do a great job.” They’ve had lots of practice. In 1985, a Miami-Dade team rushed to Mexico City, where an 8.1-magnitude earthquake crumbled homes and buildings, killing some 5,000 people. A decade later, the department sent personnel to Oklahoma City after the truck bombing at a federal building that killed 168 people. Then on to earthquakes in Turkey, Taiwan and Colombia. Read:Florida condo collapse: Death toll climbs to 11, 150 still missing The 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001 sent Florida crews to the World Trade Center, an especially emotional assignment. Many of the dead pulled from the debris were first responders who had rushed in to save lives. But there were episodes of hope in Port-au-Prince, Haiti — devastated by an earthquake in 2010 — whenever rescuers pulled out a survivor. A reporter for the Christian Science Monitor recounted witnessing a Miami-Dade crew going into a collapsed building to save three children, ages 5, 7 and 14, while a frantic mother looked on from the street. There have been other tragedies at home, including the collapse in 2012 of a parking structure under construction at Miami Dade College that killed four workers. But perhaps nothing has hit as hard as this most recent disaster. No one has been pulled out alive from the ruins since the first hours after the building fell. Rescue workers have had to move cautiously amid the precarious pile of debris. “Those first responders are breaking their backs trying to find anybody they can,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday. Alfredo Lopez, who lived on the sixth floor of the condominium complex, in a portion that remained standing, bristled at complaints that crews weren’t working hard enough or fast enough. “When we got out there that night, I could see nothing but ambulances and fire trucks and police cars,” he said. “Perhaps they didn’t get in there soon enough because they didn’t know what the hell was going on, like none of us.” A seven-member search and rescue team from Mexico’s Jewish community is using for the first time a $23,000 suitcase-size device that uses microwave radar to see through 40 feet of shattered concrete and can detect signs of breathing and heartbeats. The team has also used dogs to sniff for victims. “We are hopeful for a miracle,” said Ricardo Aizenman, one of the rescuers from Cadena International. It’s happened before, he said. “People can live up to 15, 16 days with only water, drops of water.” Dr. Howard Lieberman also believes survivors might still be found. Read:Rescuers stay hopeful about finding more survivors in rubble “As a trauma surgeon, the one thing that I’ve learned is never count someone out. I’ve made that mistake once or twice,” Lieberman said. “And you know what? They proved me wrong.” Lieberman was on the scene hours after Thursday’s collapse and now leads a five-person medical team attached to Miami-Dade’s search and rescue unit. He has found himself treating rescue workers for blisters and injured feet, heat exhaustion and fatigue from toiling in heat approaching 90 degrees. “These guys work 12-hour cycles. I see them coming off the pile at 12 noon and they are spent, and they’re working their way back down to their tents,” said Downey, the former Miami-Dade fire chief who now chairs the Urban Search and Rescue Committee of the International Association of Fire Chiefs “They get cleaned up. They get a little bit of food. A few hours later, I’m talking to my guys. They say, ‘We’re ready to go, chief. Put us in. We want to get to work.”

The slow work of sifting through the remnants of a collapsed Florida condo building stretched into a sixth day Tuesday, as families desperate for progress endured a wrenching wait for answers. “We have people waiting and waiting and waiting for news,” Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told reporters Monday. “We have them coping with the news that they might not have their loved ones come out alive and still hope against hope that they will. They’re learning that some of their loved ones will come out as body parts. This is the kind of information that is just excruciating for everyone.” The work has been deliberate and treacherous. Just two additional bodies were found Monday, raising the count of confirmed dead to 11. That leaves 150 people still unaccounted for in the community of Surfside, just outside Miami. Authorities are meeting frequently with families to explain what they’re doing and answer questions. They have discussed with families everything from how DNA matches are made to help identify the dead, to how will next of kin be contacted, to going into “extreme detail” about how they are searching the mound, the mayor said. Read:Florida condo collapse: Death toll climbs to 11, 150 still missing Armed with that knowledge, she said, families are coming to their own conclusions. “Some are feeling more hopeful, some less hopeful, because we do not have definitive answers. We give them the facts. We take them to the site,” she said. “They have seen the operation. They understand now how it works, and they are preparing themselves for news, one way or the other.” Rescuers are using bucket brigades and heavy machinery as they work atop a precarious mound of pulverized concrete, twisted steel and the remnants of dozens of households. The efforts included firefighters, sniffer dogs and search experts using radar and sonar devices. Authorities said their efforts were still a search-and-rescue operation, but no one has been found alive since hours after the collapse on Thursday. Read:Rescuers stay hopeful about finding more survivors in rubble The pancake collapse of the building left layer upon layer of intertwined debris, frustrating efforts to reach anyone who may have survived in a pocket of space. “Every time there’s an action, there’s a reaction,” Miami-Dade Assistant Fire Chief Raide Jadallah said during a news conference Monday. “It’s not an issue of we could just attach a couple of cords to a concrete boulder and lift it and call it a day.” Some of the concrete pieces are smaller, the size of basketballs or baseballs. From outside a neighboring building on Monday, more than two dozen family members watched teams of searchers excavate the building site. Some held onto each other for support. Others hugged and prayed. Some people took photos. Authorities on Monday insisted they are not losing hope. Read:Families of the missing visit site of Florida condo collapse Deciding to transition from search-and-rescue work to a recovery operation is agonizing, said Dr. Joseph A. Barbera, a professor at George Washington University. That decision is fraught with considerations, he said, that only those on the ground can make. Barbera coauthored a study examining disasters where some people survived under rubble for prolonged periods of time. He has also advised teams on where to look for potential survivors and when to conclude “that the probability of continued survival is very, very small.” “It’s an incredibly difficult decision, and I’ve never had to make that decision,” Barbera said. The building collapsed just days before a deadline for condo owners to start making steep payments toward more than $9 million in repairs that had been recommended nearly three years earlier, in a report that warned of “major structural damage.”

Rescue workers digging feverishly for a fifth day Monday stressed that they could still find survivors in the rubble of a collapsed Florida condo building, a hope family members clung to even though no one has been pulled out alive since the first day the structure fell. The death toll rose by just four people Sunday, to a total of nine confirmed dead. But more than 150 people are still missing in Surfside. Families of the missing rode buses to a site nearby from which they could watch teams at work Sunday: firefighters, sniffer dogs and search experts employing radar and sonar devices. U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz said at a Sunday evening news conference that she had met with some of the rescue workers and was able to “hear the hope that they have.” Read:Families of the missing visit site of Florida condo collapse “We obviously have some realism that we’re dealing with. But ... as long as the experts that we trust are telling me they have hope to find people who might have been able to survive, then we have to make sure that we hold on to that hope,” she said. Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Nachman Shai, head of a humanitarian delegation from Israel that includes several search-and-rescue experts, said the professionals have told him of cases where survivors were found after 100 hours or more. “So don’t lose hope, that’s what I would say,” he said. Some families had hoped their visit to the site near the 12-story building would allow them to shout messages to loved ones possibly buried deep inside the pile. As they returned to a nearby hotel, several paused to embrace as they got off the bus. Others walked slowly with arms around each other back to the hotel entrance. “We are just waiting for answers. That’s what we want,” said Dianne Ohayon, whose parents, Myriam and Arnie Notkin, were in the building. “It’s hard to go through these long days and we haven’t gotten any answers yet.” Authorities on Sunday identified the additional four people that had been recovered as Leon Oliwkowicz, 80; Christina Beatriz Elvira, 74; Anna Ortiz, 46; and Luis Bermudez, 26. The number of people left unaccounted for was 152, said Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava. The last live person rescued was on Thursday, just hours after the collapse. Miami-Dade Assistant Fire Chief Raide Jadallah explained that conditions at the site — the building pancaked when it fell — have frustrated crews looking for survivors. Alan Cominsky, chief of the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Department, said his team is holding out hope of finding someone alive, but must continue to move slowly and methodically. Read:Crews at collapse site find body, raising death toll to five “The debris field is scattered throughout, and it’s compact, extremely compact,” he said, noting that teams must stabilize and shore up debris as they go. “We can’t just go in and move things erratically, because that’s going to have the worst outcome possible,” he said. Among the tools rescuers used was a microwave radar device developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab and the Department of Homeland Security that “sees” through up to 8 inches (20 centimeters) of solid concrete, according to Adrian Garulay, CEO of Spec Ops Group, which sells them. The suitcase-size device can detect human respiration and heartbeats and was being deployed Sunday by a seven-member search-and-rescue team from Mexico’s Jewish community. Levine Cava said six to eight teams are actively searching the pile at any given time, with hundreds of team members on standby ready to rotate in. She said teams have worked around the clock since Thursday, and there was no lack of personnel. President Joe Biden said in a statement he spoke with FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell about efforts on the ground after Criswell visited the site. Biden said his administration is prepared to provide assistance and support. “This is an unimaginably difficult time for the families enduring this tragedy,” Biden said. “My heart goes out to every single person suffering during this awful moment.” Read:Toll in Florida collapse rises to 4; 159 remain missing Crews spent Saturday night digging a trench that stretches 125 feet long, 20 feet across and 40 feet deep (38 meters long, 6 meters across and 12 meters deep), which, she said, allowed them to find more bodies and human remains. Earl Tilton, who runs a search-and-rescue consulting firm in North Carolina, said rushing into the rubble without careful planning and execution would injure or kill rescuers and the people they are trying to save. “Moving the wrong piece of debris at the wrong time could cause it to fall” on workers and crush them, he said. But Tilton agreed families were not wrong to continue holding out hope. During past urban rescues, he said, rescuers have found survivors as long as a week past the initial catastrophe.

Families of the missing visited the scene of the Florida condo building collapse Sunday as rescuers kept digging through the mound of rubble and clinging to hope that someone could yet be alive somewhere under the broken concrete and twisted metal. The death toll rose by just four people, to a total of nine confirmed dead. The latest four victims were identified Sunday night by police as Christina Beatriz Elvira, 74; Luis Bermudez, 26; Leon Oliwkowicz, 80; and Anna Ortiz, 46. After almost four full days of search-and-rescue efforts, more than 150 additional people were still missing in Surfside. No one has been pulled alive from the pile since Thursday, hours after the collapse. Some families had hoped their visit would allow them to shout messages to loved ones possibly buried deep inside the pile. Read:Crews at collapse site find body, raising death toll to five Buses brought several groups of relatives to a place where they could view the pile and the rescuers at work. As relatives returned to a nearby hotel, several paused to embrace as they got off the bus. Others walked slowly with arms around each other back to the hotel entrance. “We are just waiting for answers. That’s what we want,” said Dianne Ohayon, whose parents, Myriam and Arnie Notkin were in the building. “It’s hard to go through these long days and we haven’t gotten any answers yet.” Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Nachman Shai, who visited with family members, led a humanitarian delegation to Surfside that included several Israeli experts in search-and-rescue operations. He said the experts have told him of cases where survivors were found after 100 hours or more. “So don’t lose hope, that’s what I would say. But you have everyone understanding the longer it takes, the prospects of finding someone alive goes down,” he said. “If you watch the scene, you know it’s almost impossible to find someone alive,” Shai added. “But you never know. Sometimes miracles happen, you know? We Jews believe in miracles.” Rescuers sought to reassure families that they were doing as much as possible to find missing loved ones, but the crews said they needed to work carefully for the best chance of uncovering survivors. Some relatives have been frustrated with the pace of rescue efforts. “My daughter is 26 years old, in perfect health. She could make it out of there,” one mother told rescuers during a weekend meeting with family members. A video of the meeting was posted by Instagram user Abigail Pereira. “It’s not enough,” continued the mother, who was among relatives who pushed authorities to bring in experts from other countries to help. “Imagine if your children were in there.” Scores of rescue workers remained on the massive heap of rubble Sunday, searching for survivors but so far finding only bodies and human remains. Read:Toll in Florida collapse rises to 4; 159 remain missing In a meeting with families Saturday evening, people moaned and wept as Miami-Dade Assistant Fire Chief Raide Jadallah explained why he could not answer their repeated questions about how many victims they had found. “It’s not necessarily that we’re finding victims, OK? We’re finding human remains,” Jadallah said, according to the video posted on Instagram. He noted the pancake collapse of the 12-story building, which had crumbled into a rubble pile that could be measured in feet. Those conditions have frustrated crews looking for survivors, he said. Every time crews find remains, they clean the area and remove the remains. They work with a rabbi to ensure any religious rituals are done properly, Jadallah said. If crews find any “artifacts,” such as documents, pictures or money, they turn them over to police, officials said. Alan Cominsky, chief of the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Department, said they are holding out hope of finding someone alive, but they must be slow and methodical. “The debris field is scattered throughout, and it’s compact, extremely compact,” he said. Debris must be stabilized and shored up as they go. “If there is a void space, we want to make sure we’re given every possibility of a survivor. That’s why we can’t just go in and move things erratically, because that’s going to have the worst outcome possible,” he said. In meetings with authorities, family members repeatedly pushed rescuers to do more. One asked why they could not surgically remove the largest pieces of cement with cranes, to try to uncover bigger voids where survivors might be found. Read:Collapsed Florida building drew global visitors, residents “There’s not giant pieces that we can easily surgically remove,” replied Maggie Castro, of the fire rescue agency. “They’re not big pieces. Pieces are crumbled, and they’re being held together by the rebar that’s part of the construction. So if we try to lift that piece, even as carefully, those pieces that are crumbling can fall off the sides and disturb the pile,” Castro said. She said they try to cut rebar in strategic places and remove large pieces, but that they have to remove them in a way that nothing will fall onto the pile. “We are doing layer by layer,” Castro said. “It doesn’t stop. It’s all day. All night.” Rescuers swept the mound with dogs trained to sniff out humans. They also used a microwave radar device developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab and the Department of Homeland Security that “sees” through up to 8 inches (20 centimeters) of solid concrete, according to Adrian Garulay, CEO of Spec Ops Group, which sells them. The suitcase-sized device can detect human respiration and heartbeats and was being deployed Sunday by a seven-member search-and-rescue team from Mexico’s Jewish community. Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said six to eight teams are actively searching the pile at any given time, with hundreds of team members on standby ready to rotate in. She said teams have worked around the clock since Thursday, and there was no lack of personnel. Teams are also working with engineers and sonar to make sure the rescuers are safe. Crews spent Saturday night digging a trench that stretches 125 feet long, 20 feet across and 40 feet deep (38 meters long, 6 meters across and 12 meters deep), which, she said, allowed them to find more bodies and human remains. Earl Tilton, who runs a search-and-rescue consulting firm in North Carolina, said rushing into the rubble without careful planning and execution would injure or kill rescuers and the people they are trying to save, said Tilton, who runs Lodestar Professional Services in Hendersonville, North Carolina. Read:Miami-area condo collapse causes massive emergency response “I understand the families’ concerns on this. If it was my family member, I would want everyone in there pulling rubble away as fast as humanly possible,” Tilton said. “But moving the wrong piece of debris at the wrong time could cause it to fall on them and crush them.” During past urban rescues, rescuers have found survivors as long as a week past the initial catastrophe, Tilton said. Rescue workers identified an additional four bodies that had been recovered earlier, bringing the number of people unaccounted for to 152, the Miami-Dade mayor said Sunday. Authorities are gathering DNA samples from family members to aid in identification. Late Saturday, four of the victims were identified as Stacie Dawn Fang, 54; Antonio Lozano, 83; Gladys Lozano, 79; and Manuel LaFont, 54.

Rescue crews found another body in the rubble of a collapsed 12-story condominium tower near Miami on Saturday, raising the death toll to five as they raced to recover any survivors after fighting back fire and smoke deep inside the concrete and metal remains. Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava announced the heightened toll at an evening news briefing, saying the identification of three bodies had dropped the number of unaccounted for down to 156. She said crews also discovered other unspecified human remains. The Miami-Dade Police Department later Saturday said four of the five deceased had been identified, along with the apartments where they were at the moment of the collapse. One of the was the mother of a boy who was rescued the night the building toppled, another couple in their late 70s and early 80s and a 54-year-old man. Officials said remains they find are being sent to the medical examiner, and they are also gathering DNA samples from family members to help identify them. Read:Toll in Florida collapse rises to 4; 159 remain missing Separately, a video posted online showed an official briefing families of missing loved ones. When he said they had found remains among the rubble, people began sobbing. Throughout the day, rescue workers scoured the mountain of debris with trained dogs and sonar, searching for any survivors. “Our top priority continues to be search and rescue and saving any lives that we can,” the mayor said. But crews had to fight flames in the debris during the day. At one point Saturday, a fire hose blasted one of the lower floors on the north side of the tower as white smoke or steam streamed out. A bitter, sulfur-like smell hung in the air. “The stench is very thick,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said. A crane removed pieces of debris from the more than 30-foot pile in the city of Surfside, and scores of rescuers used big machines, small buckets, drones, microphones and their own hands to pick through the rubble. For many with missing loved ones, the wait was agonizing. The atmosphere was tense inside a hotel ballroom where around 200 family members were briefed, two people present told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss the private conversations. The two said families frustrated with the slow pace of recovery efforts had demanded permission to go to the scene and attempt a collective shout — an attempt as much to find survivors as a cathartic farewell to those who had died. Read:Collapsed Florida building drew global visitors, residents Among those awaiting word of loved ones was Rachel Spiegel, whose mother, 66-year-old Judy Spiegel, lived on the sixth floor. Speaking beside her siblings, she said Saturday that “we’re trying to hold it together.” “I know my mom is a fighter. I know she loves us. I know she doesn’t want to give up. So, you know, it’s day three, so it’s hard,” Spiegel said. President Joe Biden said via Twitter that he had spoken with DeSantis on Friday to offer assistance as needed. “My heart is with the community of Surfside as they grieve their lost loved ones and wait anxiously as search and rescue efforts continue,” Biden tweeted. Authorities announced they were beginning an audit of buildings nearing their 40-year review — like the fallen Champlain Towers South — to make sure they’re safe. The mayor asked other cities in the county to join the building review and said there will be state and federal funding to help. Federal Emergency Management Agency officials have joined local and state authorities at the site, DeSantis said. He added a nearby “sister building” of the collapsed tower is also being looked at because it was built at the same time and with the same designer. Late Saturday, Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said that a city official had led a cursory review of the nearby Champlain Towers North and Champlain Towers East buildings. “They didn’t find anything out of the ordinary,” he said. Read:Miami-area condo collapse causes massive emergency response He emphasized the priority now was on rescuing anyone still alive. “What we’re doing now is we’re saving lives and we’re bringing people out of the rubble. What we’re going to do in the next phase, after we address support for the families, is we are going to do a very deep dive into why this building fell down,” Burkett said. Burkett had said earlier he was working on a plan to temporarily relocate residents of the Champlain Towers North, which was constructed the same year and sits about 100 yards away from the collapsed building, and that FEMA has agreed to pay for lodging. The mayor said he didn’t plan to order residents to evacuate, but if he lived there, “I’d be gone.” Surfside city staffers had also been gathering details about Champlain Towers East, which was built in a different style and apparently was built at a different time. The news came after word of a 2018 engineering report that showed the building had “major structural damage” to a concrete slab below its pool deck that needed extensive repairs, part of a series of documents released by the city of Surfside. While officials said no cause for the collapse early Thursday has been determined, DeSantis said a “definitive answer” was needed in a timely manner. Video showed the center of the building appearing to tumble down first, followed by a section nearer to the beach. The 2018 report was part of preliminary work by the engineering company conducting the building’s required inspections for a recertification due this year of the building’s structural integrity at 40 years. The condominium tower was built in 1981. Read:Tornado sweeps through suburban Chicago, causing damage A federal agency specializing in disaster losses and structure failures is sending a half dozen scientists and engineers to collect direct information for determining whether to pursue a more thorough study. The first team members arrived Friday, said Jason Averill, an official at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. That agency also investigated the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11, and more recently, Hurricane Maria devastation in Puerto Rico, among other disasters. Separately, the government of Israel said it was sending a team of engineering and rescue specialists to aid the search. Israeli media have reported that some 20 citizens of that country were believed among the missing. Another 22 people unaccounted for were from Argentina, Venezuela, Uruguay and Paraguay, including relatives of Paraguayan first lady Silvana de Abdo Benítez.

The Champlain Towers South drew people from around the globe to enjoy life on South Florida’s Atlantic Coast, some for a night, some to live. A couple from Argentina and their young daughter. A beloved retired Miami-area teacher and his wife. Orthodox Jews from Russia. Israelis. The sister of Paraguay’s first lady. Others from South America. They were among the nearly 100 people who remained missing Friday morning, a day after the 12-story building collapsed into rubble early Thursday. Much of the Champlain’s beach side sheared off for unknown reasons, pancaking into a pile of concrete and metal more than 30 feet (10 meters) high. Only one person had been confirmed dead, but officials feared that number could skyrocket. Eleven injuries were reported, with four people treated at hospitals. Read:Miami-area condo collapse causes massive emergency response “These are very difficult times, and things are going to get more difficult as we move forward,” Miami-Dade Police Director Freddy Ramirez said. Fire Rescue personnel and others worked through the night in hopes of finding survivors. Officials said no cause for the collapse has been determined. Video of the collapse showed the center of the building appearing to tumble down first and a section nearest to the ocean teetering and coming down seconds later, as a huge dust cloud swallowed the neighborhood. Youtube video thumbnailAbout half the building’s roughly 130 units were affected, and rescuers pulled at least 35 people from the wreckage in the first hours after the collapse. Raide Jadallah, an assistant Miami-Dade County fire chief, said that while listening devices placed on and in the wreckage had picked up no voices, they had detected possible banging noises, giving rescuers hope some are alive. Rescuers were tunneling into the wreckage from below, going through the building’s underground parking garage. Personal belongings were evidence of shattered lives amid the wreckage of the Champlain, which was built in 1981 in Surfside, a small suburb northwest of Miami. A children’s bunk bed perched precariously on a top floor, bent but intact and apparently inches from falling into the rubble. A comforter lay on the edge of a lower floor. Televisions. Computers. Chairs. Read:Tornado sweeps through suburban Chicago, causing damage Argentines Dr. Andres Galfrascoli, his husband, Fabian Nuñez and their 6-year-old daughter, Sofia, had spent Wednesday night there at an apartment belonging to a friend, Nicolas Fernandez. Galfrascoli, a Buenos Aires plastic surgeon, and Nunez, a theater producer and accountant, had come to Florida to get away from a COVID-19 resurgence in Argentina and its strict lockdowns. They had worked hard to adopt Sofia, Fernandez said. “Of all days, they chose the worst to stay there,” Fernandez said. “I hope it’s not the case, but if they die like this, that would be so unfair.” They weren’t the only South Americans missing. Foreign ministries and consulates of four countries said 22 nationals were missing in the collapse: nine from Argentina, six from Paraguay, four from Venezuela and three from Uruguay. The Paraguayans included Sophia López Moreira — the sister of first lady Silvana Abdo and sister-in-law of President Mario Abdo Benítez — and her family. Israeli media said the country’s consul general in Miami, Maor Elbaz, believes that 20 citizens of that country are missing. Read:8 kids in youth van among the 13 lives lost to Claudette Also missing was Arnie Notkin, a retired Miami-area elementary school physical education teacher, and his wife, Myriam. They lived on the third floor. “Everyone’s been posting, ‘Oh my God, he was my coach,’” said Fortuna Smukler, a friend who turned to Facebook in hopes of finding someone who would report them safe. “They were also such happy, joyful people. He always had a story to tell, and she always spoke so kindly of my mother,” Smukler said. “Originally there were rumors that he had been found, but it was a case of mistaken identity. It would be a miracle if they’re found alive.”

A dilapidated building collapsed following heavy rains in the western Indian city of Mumbai, killing at least 11 people and injuring seven others, police said Thursday. Heavy monsoon rains during the day Wednesday had flooded several parts of the city that is India’s financial and entertainment capital. Read: India reports record high of 6,148 COVID-19 deaths in 24 hours The three-story building collapsed late Wednesday night, and police officer Ravindra Kadam said dozens of rescuers were clearing the debris to find any residents possibly still trapped. The New Delhi Television channel said the building collapsed onto another structure in a slum in the Malad West area of Mumbai. Read: 17 killed in India road crash Residents joined the fire and police officers in rescuing people and they took the seven injured to a hospital in the suburban Kandivali area. Mumbai recorded 222 millimeters (8 inches) of rain in 12 hours Wednesday. Tidal waves that reached up to 4. 6 meters (13 feet) prevented the rainfall from being drained, and roads, rail tracks and neighborhoods were left waterlogged. Read:18 die in India chemical factory fire Building collapses are common in India during the June-September monsoon season when heavy rains weaken the foundations of structures that are poorly built. In 2019, a three-story building collapsed in a hilly area in the northern Indian town of Solan following heavy rains, killing 14 people. A four-story building collapsed in Mumbai the same year and killed 10 people.

Narayanganj, Nov 3 (UNB) – The body of a schoolboy was retrieved while seven others were injured after a four-storey building collapsed in Babubail area of the city on Sunday afternoon.