SURFSIDE, Fla. — Rescue teams entered the seventh day of searching the rubble of the partially collapsed Champlain Towers South in Surfside on Wednesday, boring deeper into the pile and inching closer to bedrooms and other areas where they hope to find survivors among the 149 people who are still reported missing.
The death toll rose to 12, officials said Tuesday night, though many are bracing for that number to rise. A long line of Miami-Dade County police cars and medical examiner vans are at the site on Collins Avenue.
Heavy equipment and teams of rescuers working 12-hour shifts have removed three million pounds of concrete from the site, Miami-Dade Fire Chief Alan Cominsky said on Tuesday night. Workers have contended with nearly a week of rain, heat, fires deep inside the rubble and the instability of the pile itself.
The commander of the Israeli National Rescue Unit told CNN Tuesday that the collapsed bedrooms in the building are buried under 13 to 16 feet of concrete. "So there is still hope," he said.
As teams continue the painstaking search and rescue — and families and friends of the missing await information about the fate of their loved ones — President Joe Biden said he will visit Surfside on Thursday and Miami-Dade officials pledged to find answers for the catastrophic collapse.
Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said she would ask a grand jury to examine the condo collapse and safety issues raised by the tragedy.
That work lies ahead. The urgency now is the search-and-rescue effort, said Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava.
"They have been working nonstop as you know for six days," she said.
She said the county will review the list of missing persons — provided by friends and family members who reported the information — in order to remove duplicate names and get a more accurate account.
"This is a slow and methodical process," Levine Cava said.
Family members of those unaccounted for said they remained hopeful, despite the strong undercurrent of despair and futility. Hundreds of people gathered Monday night at a beach vigil to remember the victims of the building collapse, with both relatives and strangers joining in the silence and the pain.
"I have not lost any hope or faith," said Martin Langesfeld, whose 26-year-old sister, Nicole, lived in unit 804 of Champlain Towers South with her husband, Louis. "I know she's still there, I know it," Langesfeld told WPLG-Channel 10.
On Tuesday, Cominsky, the county's fire chief, said rescue workers are not going back into the west section of the building facing Collins Avenue — the section that remains standing — because it is too dangerous. He also noted that they cannot enter a large area under the rubble on the eastern side because of the same risk.
Helping rescue teams search for survivors are at least two small unmanned devices sent from a Massachusetts-based company over the weekend to the Surfside collapse scene. They are equipped with thermal sensors and 360-degree-view cameras that can help teams search for people and that have previously helped rescuers in similar situations, including the World Trade Center collapse on 9/11.
Four weeks into hurricane season, however, emergency officials said they must be prepared for potential storms anywhere in the state.
With every Florida Urban Search and Rescue Task Force currently deployed to Surfside, officials said they have requested reinforcements in Surfside in case crews are needed to respond to a storm elsewhere in Florida.
Florida Division of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie said he and Cominsky made the decision together to request additional resources from the federal government.
Cominksy said officials had already requested to have three federal teams on standby in case they're needed. One will now be deployed to Surfside, he added.
"Due to the recent five-day forecast with two storms, we decided that it would be best to go ahead and activate them," he said.
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(Miami Herald staff writers Daniel Chang, Doug Hanks, Aaron Leibowitz and Charles Rabin contributed to this report.)
