Rescuers and families cling to hope of finding survivors in Florida
Dozens of families continued to cling to hope as search and rescue teams combed a mountain of rubble on Friday, searching for any survivors of the nearly 159 people still missing after an apartment building collapsed near Miami, Florida, on Thursday.
The official death toll from that disaster has reached four, and that number is sure to rise as rescuers grapple with smoke, fires and the precarious state of rubble as they work in the sweltering South Florida heat.
Although the scene looked bleak with the floors of the high-rise building stacked on top of each other, rescuers continued to search through the rubble, hoping that pockets had formed, giving any potential survivors air to breathe.
"We have hope because that's what our search and rescue team is telling us that they have hope," Miami-Dade Mayor Daniela Levine Cava said at a news conference.
But there was no change in the number of missing people throughout the day, which means that rescuers have not found any bodies or survivors.
Levin Kava said the teams worked with dogs, cameras and sensors on site, rotating with only a limited number allowed to operate at any one time to prevent further collapse. Teams from Mexico and Israel have arrived to help relieve the burden of local crews.
The disaster occurred in the early hours of Thursday morning, when many were asleep, when a large part of the high-rise building, which is 40 years old, collapsed.
A video clip recorded by a security camera showed the collapse of an entire side of the building at around 1:30 a.m. Thursday (05:30 GMT), leaving clouds of dust.
The Champlain Towers South is located in Surfside, across from Miami across Biscayne Bay.
Reuters
