Florida fears to have lost several lives after building collapses

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One life was claimed while others are still stuck after the collision of a condo building outside Miami on Thursday, looking like a huge destroyed dollhouse with one side chopped.

Several survivors have been retrieved while rescuers are trying to save more lives.

Authorities said that the 12-story building’s wing broke down with a bang at around 1:30 in the morning. About a hundred individuals were unaccounted for by late afternoon, which triggered worries on the possible increase in casualties. Officials were not able to identify the actual number of people inside the building when the accident happened.

Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett described the building as “literally pancaked.”

“That is heartbreaking because it doesn’t mean, to me, that we are going to be as successful as we wanted to be in finding people alive.”

Rescuers attempted to save a stuck child who was believed to have lost his parents hours following the accident. In a separate scenario, searchers managed to retrieve a mother, who was later needed to be amputated, and her child, according to the Miami-Dade emergency management director Frank Rollason in an interview with the Miami Herald.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis visited the site and said that the media failed to cover the overall scale of the destruction.

He said that rescuers are “doing everything they can to save lives. That is ongoing, and they’re not going to rest.”

State’s first marshal Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis said that groups of ten to 12 searchers at the period penetrated the collapsed buildings with equipment and search dogs.

“They’re not going to stop just because of nightfall,” he said. “They just may have a different path they pursue.”

President Joe Biden, meanwhile, said the federal government is prepared to give help if needed.