SURFSIDE, Fla. (Reuters) – The effort to locate survivors of a Miami area condo collapse entered its 14th day on Wednesday with the death toll at 36 and expected to rise further with officials acknowledging the increasingly remote probability of finding people alive.
Search and rescue workers continued to sift through the rubble of the collapsed Champlain Towers South building in warm, dry conditions as Tropical Storm Elsa battered western Florida on the opposite side of the state, moving further away from the site.
Teams on Tuesday had pulled the remains of eight more victims from the ruins of the residential building in Surfside, Florida, taking the death toll to 36. Some 109 people who may have been inside the building when it partially collapsed on June 24 are still considered missing, although that number could change as police detectives work to confirm the names.
Officials are expected to provide an update on the situation at 11 a.m. ET, Miami-Dade police posted on Twitter.
The Surfside area has been spared the worst of Elsa, which was expected to make landfall on the north Florida Gulf coast later on Wednesday.
The storm’s approach nevertheless prompted local officials to demolish a still-standing section of the 12-story tower on Sunday night over worries that high winds could knock it down – a move officials say has aided the search for victims and survivors.
Though local officials say they have not given up hope of finding survivors, no one has been discovered alive in the rubble since the first few hours after Champlain Towers South collapsed and officials have said the likelihood of anyone else being found alive has diminished.
Miami-Dade County Fire Chief Alan Cominsky said on Tuesday that rescuers have not found any “livable spaces” where survivors could have been spared.
(reporting by Franciso Alvarado; additional reporting by Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
