Emergency workers, on Wednesday, gave up on any hope of finding survivors in the collapsed Florida condo building. Families of victims were informed by officials that there was “no chance of life” in the rubble as crews shifted their efforts to recovering more remains.
The announcement followed increasingly sombre reports from emergency officials, who said they sought to prepare families for the worst.
“At this point, we have truly exhausted every option available to us in the search-and-rescue mission,” Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told AP.
Miami-Dade Fire Chief Alan Cominsky said he expected the recovery operation to take several more weeks.
The hope of finding survivors was briefly rekindled after workers demolished the remainder of the building on Sunday. Searchers were looking for any open spaces within the mounds of rubble where additional survivors might be found, said the county's fire chief, Alan Cominsky. While open spaces were found in the basement and parking garage, but, no survivors emerged.
Instead, over a dozen of additional victims were recovered, teams recovered more than a dozen additional victims. Several residents were found dead in their beds because the building collapsed in the early morning hours, AP reported.
No one has been pulled out alive since the first hours after the 12-story Champlain Towers South building fell on June 24.
Rescuers had to suspend the mission twice because of the instability of the remaining structure and the preparation for demolition.
The county's police director, Freddy Ramirez said, “Our primary goal right now is to bring closure to the families.”
Severe weather from Elsa hindered search efforts to a degree. Lightning forced rescuers to pause their work for two hours early Tuesday, Assistant Fire Chief Raide Jadallah said. And winds of 20 mph (32 kmph), with stronger gusts, hampered efforts to move heavy debris with cranes, officials said.
However, the storm's heaviest winds and rain would bypass Surfside and neighbouring Miami as Elsa weakened along its path to an expected landfall somewhere between Tampa Bay and Florida's Big Bend.
Crews have removed 124 tons (112 metric tonnes) of debris, which are being sorted and stored in a warehouse as potential evidence in the investigation into why the building collapsed, officials said.
Workers have been freed to search a broader area since the unstable remaining portion of the building was demolished.
