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Officials say they fear there will be many casualties after a portion of the Champlain Towers South building “pancaked” when it collapsed early Thursday morning.

A Miami-Dade firefighter told Local 10 News reporter Liane Morejon that a part of the building collapsed in a similar way to a bridge collapse, where it’s flat.

He said there are therefore no pockets that crews have been able to find for people to possibly be trapped in.

He said search and rescue dogs have yet to alert crews to any bodies, but as the day goes by and deceased body chemistry changes, he believes the dogs will start to alert to people.

Surfside Mayor Charles W. Burkett said the other two-thirds of the building could collapse, as well, so there is a continuing danger for crews at the scene near 88th Street and Collins Avenue.

A hotel next door, the Bluegreen Vacations Solara Surfside resort, was also evacuated because it’s too close to the condominium building.

Although Burkett confirmed that roof work was being done at the condo building, he said there was no reason for the building to go down like that unless there was a sinkhole or someone pulled the supports out of the building.

Former Surfside Vice Mayor Barry Cohen, however, said he believed the roof work and other factors, like a new high rise being constructed next door, may have compromised the integrity of the building.

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I wonder if they'll ever figure out why it happened.

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Although Burkett confirmed that roof work was being done at the condo building, he said there was no reason for the building to go down like that unless there was a sinkhole or someone pulled the supports out of the building.

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Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said there are 102 people who have been accounted for following the partial collapse of a building in Surfside.

"I want to give you a top number, very encouraging, 102 people have been accounted for. That's double what we were able to report last time," Levine Cava said at a news conference this afternoon. "One hundred and two people from the towers, their locations are known and they are safe.

The mayor said there are still at least 99 people who are unaccounted for following the building collapse.

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State Fire Marshal Jimmy Patronis tells CNN that tactical units working the collapsed building heard sounds from the rubble earlier today as they did search and rescue efforts.

Patronis said that rescuers heard an individual earlier today in the parking garage area that they are having difficulty getting to.

“The rescuers are hearing sounds from the rubble,” he said. “It’s kind of hit or miss. You get into the zone where you are so passionate and so focused and so determined to make sure you are doing everything possible to save a life in an event like this.”
Patronis described what search and rescue units are experiencing in the building.

“It’s like going to the gym but it’s not air conditioned, trying to remove rubble but at the same time fearful that the debris around you could come down on you. There’s flooding, there’s fuel, there’s unstable ground, in addition, the challenge of the urgency of saving lives,” he said.

Patronis said that this remains an active rescue mission as they determine how much further they can go safely into the building.

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Barry Cohen, 63, said he and his wife were asleep in the building when he first heard what he thought was a crack of lightning. The couple went onto their balcony, then opened the door to the building’s hallway to find “a pile of rubble and dust and smoke billowing around.”

“I couldn’t walk out past my doorway,” said Cohen, the former vice mayor of Surfside. “A gaping hole of rubble.”

He and his wife eventually made it to the basement and found rising water there. They returned upstairs, screamed for help and were eventually brought to safety by firefighters using a cherry-picker.

Cohen said he raised concerns years ago about whether nearby construction might be causing damage to the building after seeing cracked pavers on the pool deck.

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Originally posted by Nina:
Someone's going to pay dearly for this deferred maintenance. It sounds criminal to me.

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Originally posted by Lisa:
Anyway, if the building was known to be unsafe for years but the city of Miami didn't condemn it, I would think they would have some kind of liability, no?