Death toll climbs to 11 in Florida condo collapse, 150 missing
Pouring rain and slabs of cement hampered round-the-clock efforts to pick through debris left from the unexplained cave-in of nearly half of the 12-floor, 156-unit building, in what may end up as the deadliest unintentional structural failure in U.S. history, WAM reports.
No survivors have been pulled from the ocean-front ruins of the Champlain Towers South condo in the town of Surfside, near Miami, since the first hours after the building abruptly crumbled into a heap early on Thursday as residents slept.
«We have people waiting and waiting and waiting. That is excruciating,» Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told an afternoon news briefing on Monday, referring to friends and family members of the missing.
What caused the 40-year-old high-rise to give way remained under investigation, but initial attention focused on structural deficiencies identified in a 2008 engineer's report released by Surfside city officials.