The remaining portion of the Champlain Towers South condo building in Surfside, Florida, was demolished Sunday night after engineers declared it unstable.
The remaining portion of the Champlain Towers South condo building in Surfside, Florida, was demolished Sunday night after engineers declared it unstable.
Search-and-rescue efforts were put on pause at the Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Florida, Saturday afternoon as officials worried the unstable structure could come down on crews working the debris pile.
As tropical storm Elsa makes its way toward the Florida coast, officials are worried that the remaining structure would not withstand the powerful winds and that rescue workers could be endangered.
Crews resumed the search for victims within a few hours of the demolition. No survivors have been pulled from the rubble at the site in Surfside since the first few hours after the structure’s collapse.
Residents of the building who survived fled with whatever they had with them and had not been permitted to enter the teetering structure to retrieve valuable items.
Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said the controlled implosion went “exactly as planned”.
“I feel relief because this building was unstable. The building was hampering our search efforts,” she said.
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