At least 9 dead after partial building collapse near Miami: Live updates | CNN (2024)

Eliana Salzhauer, one of three town commissioners for Surfside, Florida, said Sunday night that survivors of the Champlain Towers South collapse she encountered have said they felt shaking during construction on a nearby building in recent years.

Salzhauer also said a 2018 report completed by structural engineers was alarming.

Family members of people missing in the rubble, including Magaly Ramsey, daughter of missing Magaly Delgado, also told CNN their family members had been concerned about shaking from the nearby construction.

A 2018 structural field survey indicated significantissues in the Champlain Towers South that collapsed Thursday.

The report, written by Morabito Consultants after a structural engineering inspection of the building, “detailed significant cracks and breaks in the concrete,” and gave “an estimate of the probable costs to make the extensive and necessary repairs,” a statement from the firm said Saturday.

A meeting was held with the condo association following the report.CNN has tried to obtain the minutes from that meeting but has not yet seen them. They were first reported by NPR.

Salzhauer said some survivorstold her they were bothered by all the shaking of their building that had occurred while a high-rise was being constructed next door.They told her there was shaking, cracking and water leaking in the garage, she said.

“They were very traumatized and shook up,” she said, saying that she heard people saying the building“was shaking all the time,” during the construction.

An email to the town’s building official,Ross Prieto, in 2019 from Mara Chouela, a member of the condo’s board, says she is concerned the nearby construction was “digging too close to our property.”

She said: “We have concerns regarding the structure of our building.”

Regarding the Champlain Towers North and East that are under a voluntary evacuation, Salzhauer said they have yet to find a reason for concern.

“We have not found an immediate life safety issue that would cause people to panic and run for their lives or we would have already evacuated. We don’t want this to happen again,” she said.

The identities of four additional deceased victims in the partial collapse of the Champlain Towers South condo building were released by Miami-Dade Police on Sunday night.

The victims were identified as Leon Oliwkowicz, 80; Luis Bermudez, 26; Anna Ortiz, 46; and Christina Beatriz Elvira, 74, a tweet from the agency said.

Oliwkowicz, Bermudez, and Ortiz were all recovered Saturday while Elvira was recovered Sunday, according to the tweet.

One victim, Stacie Fang, 54, was publicly identified Friday while three more, Antonio Lozano, 83, Gladys Lozano, 79, and Manuel LaFont, 54, were identified Saturday night.

At least nine people were killed after the residential building partially collapsedin Surfside, Florida, on Thursday. One victim remains unidentified, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said earlier during a Sunday night news briefing.

A total of 134 people have been accounted for while 152 remain unaccounted for, she said.

Miami-Dade County MayorDaniella Levine Cava said Sunday evening that favorable weather and a functional trench through the debris site continues to provide her with optimism in the wake of Thursday’s partial building collapse.

Calling the search and rescue teams heroic, Levine Cava told reporters, “It’s an inspiration to all of us, and to people all around the world. Their work, getting a fire and the smoke under control, was very pivotal, and the good weather today, were two very positive developments in the search, and they have allowed the search and rescue effort to move forward without some of the previous challenges that we have faced.”

Cava and Miami-Dade County Fire Chief Alan Cominsky said that the trench that crews created by cutting through the rubble provided opportunities to suppress smoke and smoldering fires as well as create a higher level of access to aid in their search.

“They are actively working on the trench and it actually was extremely helpful for the location of bodies,” Levine Cava said.

The mayor also pleaded with families with missing loved ones to fill out police reports, as there are still some family members that detectives have not been able to reach and who have not opened police reports.

“The site is open 24 hours a day. We’re taking DNA swabs from everybody at that location so if relatives come in, we will take DNA swabs and this will be critically important for identification,” Levine Cava said.

The mayor said she is overwhelmed with the outpouring of support from around the world, adding that the Support Surfside Fund has already raised more than $1.2 million.

A Surfside town official assured residents of Champlain Towers South that their building was “in very good shape” at a November 2018 meeting, NPR reported Sunday – even though the official had received a report warning of “major structural damage” to the tower two days earlier,according to emails released by the town and reviewed by CNN.

Rosendo Prieto, who worked as the town’sbuilding official at the time, made the comments at a meeting of the tower’s condo association more than two years before the building’s collapse,according to NPR, which said it had obtained minutes from the meeting.

“Structural engineer report was reviewed by Mr. Prieto,”the minutes cited by NPRsaid, in an apparent reference to a 2018 report from structural engineer Frank Morabito, which detailed cracking and dilapidating concrete in the parking garage underneath the tower,among other significant issues.“It appears the building is in very good shape,” the minutes noted, according to NPR.

A resident of the condo, Susana Alvarez, told NPR’s “Weekend Edition Sunday” that she attended the Nov. 15 meeting and remembereda representative of the town saying, “the building was not in bad shape.”

Emails released by the town confirm Prieto attended the meeting.Prieto has not responded to requests for comment from CNN.

Two days before the meeting took place, on Nov. 13, 2018, a member of the condo board, Mara Chouela, forwarded Prieto a copy of the structural engineer’s report, according to anemail released by the townon Saturday.

And the day after the meeting, Prieto sentanother emailto Guillermo Olmedillo, the former town manager, saying the condo board meeting “went very well.”

“The response was very positive from everyone in the room,” Prieto wrote in the Nov. 16 email, which was released by the town Sunday evening. “All main concerns over their forty year recertification process were addressed.”

He wrote that the building – which was built in 1981 – didn’t have to start the recertification until 2021, “but they have decided to start the process early which I wholeheartedly endorse and wish that this trend would catch on with other properties.”

It’s unclear how much work had been done to repair the building before its collapse – or whether the issues identified in the 2018 report contributed to the disaster. Morabito Consultants, the engineering firm that produced the report, said in a statement Saturday that the condo association hired it in June 2020 to prepare plans for the 40-year restoration, and that “roof repairs were underway, but concrete restoration had not yet begun” when the building fell.

Prieto no longer works for Surfsideand currently serves as the interim building official for Doral, another city in Miami-Dade County, according to the Doralwebsiteand a countydocument.

During a visit to the Champlain Towers debris site Sunday, relatives of missing resident Nicole Langsfeld took turns screaming out her name in hopes she’d hear them from beneath the rubble.

The somber scene came as family members of people who died or are still missing in the collapse in Surfside were taken to the site at Champlain Towers South earlier today.

Langsfeld and her husband, Luis, are among the more than 150 people who are currently unaccounted for as of Sunday evening.

Nicole’s uncle told CNN that she loved animals, and “she would have moved an elephant into that condo if she could.”

Two buses, led by a police escort, have transported family members to the debris site. There have been now three trips to the site to accommodate family members’ visits.

“We are working with the families and there will be opportunity for visitation. It will be a very private event,” Miami-Dade MayorDaniella Levine Cava said earlier.

Surfside Mayor Charles Burkettsaid Sunday evening he will release all city documents related to Champlain Towers condo.

“I’ve asked our clerk and our city attorney and our city manager to dig out every piece of correspondence related to that building and put it on our website, so that’s happening right now. And we’re just going to put it out there and let y’all see it, and it’s going to be what it’s going to be,” Burkett said during a news conference.

The mayor added that he hasn’t had a chance to review much of the available information while on-site, but said he reviewed a hard copy of a 2018 report during a break in his car.

“But beyond that, I haven’t seen much,” he said.

An engineering firm will begin inspecting the other Champlain Towers buildings starting Tuesday, Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said during a news conference Sunday night.

The structural engineers will complete a “top to bottom forensic study” on the buildings using X-rays and ground penetrating radar to check on the safety of the structures, Burkett said.

Burkett had said Saturday that inspectors had done a cursory inspection and found no immediate concerns, but a deeper dive is needed.

Evacuation is still voluntary for those buildings, but people that want to be relocated during the inspection process will be able to stay somewhere else, Burkett said. One of the donors has earmarked funding for relocation expenses for those that want to stay somewhere else during the inspections.

Investigators have identified an additional four victims pulled from the Champlain Towers South Condo building, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said during a Sunday night news briefing.

They are notifying the next of kin before releasing the identities, she said, and there are still nine confirmed fatalities in the collapse.

A total of 134 people have been accounted for while 152 remain unaccounted for, she said.

Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said Sunday that he is expecting miracles and will continue to support search and rescue operations until everyone is pulled out of the rubble of the Champlain Towers South condo building.

“I expect miracles. I’m expecting many miracles,” he told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on “Newsroom”Sunday, adding“I think we all believe and expect miracles.”

Burkett said the families of those still missing continue to receive twice daily briefings on the situation. “We had one this morning that was pretty emotional,” he said.

He said the families were informed that the Israeli search and rescue team had arrived and that a team from Mexico would arrive tomorrow.

The issue isn’t resources, but rather luck, he said.

“We have a full complement of very experienced search and rescue people. We have waves of them going over that rubble pile right now,” Burkett told CNN.“We’ve got every resource that we could ever want.”

“We got everything we need and more, we just need some luck and we had it. We were having the rains, we were having the fire. Those have both subsided and now its 100% focus on getting the people out of there,” he explained.

Burkett said he’s still hopeful as he’s seenan article that said people have survived under rubble for up to 17 days.

The mayor added that the families of those still missing just want the search and rescue teams to do more.

“We’re doing exactly that. We have armies ready to go 24 hours a day 7 days a week,” Burkett said. “It’s not going to stop until we pull everybody out.”

Albert Aguero told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Sunday that he and his wife used their condominium at the Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Florida, as a vacation home after his parents bought it three years ago, and that fleeing the apartment that he once considered a safe getaway spot for his family was a jarring and surreal experience.

“I looked to the left, and the apartment is half sheared off. I looked right ahead, which is where the elevators are supposed to be, it was just two empty elevator shafts,” Aguero said of Thursday’s collapse.

“Thankfully, the emergency exit light to the staircase was lit up, so we sprinted to the staircase and opened that door, only to realize that the wall had partially collapsed there. At that moment, it really hit me that we were racing against time to get to the bottom of the building before the entire thing came down,” he said Sunday afternoon.

Albert’s wife, Janette, recalled a similar feeling of immediacy and needing to escape from their 11thfloor apartment as quickly as possible.

“All I was thinking was, we need to get out of here before this building completely comes down on us. After seeing the walls and how badly and violently they swayed, I honestly don’t know how it didn’t come down when we were startled basically out of our sleep,” she said.

“It’s a building on the beach,” Albert Aguero said. “It shouldn’t collapse when you go to sleep, right?”

The city of Boca Raton is “working on more stringent standards for certifications of buildings” following the partial collapse of the Champlain Towers South condo building in Surfside, Boca Raton Mayor Scott Singer told CNN in an email Sunday.

“Our building staff has been working with other jurisdictions to determine the best practices,” Singer said in the email.

“A number of our condos have been working on comprehensive restorations. We can expect more of these efforts and increased steps to ensure the safety and welfare of our residents,” he added.

CNN has reached out to multiple cities in coastal south Florida to see if they have plans to modify their building inspection and recertification protocols.

The cities of Sunny Isles Beach and Miami have taken similar measures, officials from both cities tell CNN.

The City of Miami on Friday sent a letter to condo associations of buildings that are more than six stories tall and more than 40 years old, urging them to get an inspection from a qualified structural engineer following the partial collapse Thursday of the Champlain Towers South in Surfside, a city staffer told CNN.

Stephanie Severino, the director of communication for the City of Miami, said the city is asking the condo associations to send back a “status report on the conditions of their structures.”

“Effectiveimmediately, you are strongly urged to retain the services of a Licensed Structural Engineer and to undertake a Structural Inspection for Visible signs of Distress,” the letter sent to associations on Friday said, emphasizing the term immediately.

The city is reviewing the protocols for building inspections, especially for buildings of that age and size, she said.

Severino said she did not know how many buildings fall into that category.

Building associations will need to hire an engineer“who has designed(or) inspectedat least three buildings of the same or greater height to tell us if they see any signs of distress,” Severino told CNN.

If visible signs of distress are identified, they need to be noted in the cover letter report that is sent back to the city within 45 days, she said.

The City of Sunny Isles Beach will begin reviewing buildings starting Monday after announcing this weekend that it would modifythe existing process for 40-year recertifications of buildingsfollowing the partial collapse of the Champlain Towers South in nearby Surfside, Vice Mayor Larisa Svechin told CNN.

Svechin said Sunday that the city is about 1.7 square miles large and has more than 20,000 condo units. Of those 20,000 units, a majority are under the age of concern for reinspection, she said.

“Teams have already been established,” Svechin said, adding that the city has a hard deadline to review their buildings by July 1.

There are about 20 buildings that are coming up for recertification and those that have already been recertified will be reviewed, she said.

The transparency is something the city wants to give residents so they can feel at ease following the tragedy in Surfside that killed nine people and left more than 150 missing, she said.

“The more the residents see what we’re doing, the better it is for everyone,” Svechin said.

Family members of people who died or are still missing in the collapse in Surfside were taken to the site at Champlain Towers South Sunday, according to mayor Daniella Levine Cava’s office.

“It is a private and deeply emotional moment for the families,” the spokesperson for the mayor’s office said.

The family members were transported by bus.

The mayor of Miami-Dade said during a press briefing Sunday that the families of those missing or who have perished in the Champlain Towers South collapse will be allowed to visit the site.

“We are working with the families and there will be opportunity for visitation. It will be a very private event,” Levine Cavasaid.

Nine people are dead and more than 150 remain unaccounted for.

Search and rescue crews continue their efforts Sunday to find survivors in the rubble.

CNN’s Ryan Young reports:

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The City of Miami Beach has declared a state of emergency in the wake of the Champlain Towers South collapse in Surfside, Florida.

Accordingto a press release sent Sunday, Champlain Towers is “steps away from the city’s northernmost border with the neighboring town of Surfside.”

“A significant portion of the staging for the emergency response efforts is taking place within Miami Beach,” the release said.

The declaration ensures the city will be eligible to receive reimbursem*nt for emergency-related expenditures associated to the collapse, according to the release. The City of Miami Beach said it is continuing efforts to assist in the search and rescue effort through personnel, equipment, and vehicles, according to the release.

President Biden, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava have issued emergency declarations as well, according to the release.

According to the city’s Facebook page, Mayor Dan Gelber has called a Special Hybrid City Commission Meeting set to take place Monday at 5:30 p.m. ET to discuss the state of emergency.

The FEMA administrator said Sunday that the Army Corps of Engineers has been brought in to provide technical assistance at the Champlain Towers South collapse site in Surfside, Florida.

“We are committed to working with the incident commander, the mayor, the governor, and the state team to bring in any additional resources that might be needed throughout this event,” Deanne Criswell, FEMA administrator, told reporters Sunday during a news conference.

Criswell said FEMA has begun registering families who need assistance.Criswell promised FEMA will assist the families “face to face” as they navigate the federal system.

“Serving this community is our top priority and I just want you to know that we are here to support with whatever the federal government can bring to assist for as long as we need to,” Criswell said.

The mayor of Miami-Dade said Sunday that the families of those missing or who have perished in the Champlain Towers South collapse will be allowed to visit the site.

“We are working with the families and there will be opportunity for visitation. It will be a very private event,” Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said during a news conference Sunday.

The mayor announced the total death count has risen to nine.

Miami-Dade County, Florida, Mayor Daniella Levine Cava confirmed that the death toll from the building collapse is currently nine people

“As of today, one victim passedaway in the hospital, and we’verecovered eight more victimson-site, so I am confirmingtoday that the death toll is atnine,” the mayor said.

She said that they have identified four of thevictims and notified the next ofkin.

“We are making every effort toidentify those others who havebeen recovered, andadditionally, contacting theirfamily members as soon as we areable,” she said.

A news conference with officials is currently ongoing in Surfside.

The fire that was hampering search efforts at the Surfside, Florida, building collapse site is now “under control” said Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava at a news conference this morning.

“Our teams have done an amazingjob and yesterday we suppressedthe fire that had been going outof control and the smoke thatwas inhibiting activities incertain parts of the pile, soaround noon yesterday that wasbrought under control, making itpossible for the search tocontinue in those areas as well,” she said.

Surfside, Florida, Mayor Charles Burkett promised enduring commitment to the families of those who have loved ones still in the building collapse rubble.

“We are working 24-hours a day non-stop, nothing else on our mind, with the only objective of pulling their family members out of that rubble safely. That’s what we’re doing and we’re not going to stop doing that, not today, not tomorrow, not the next day. We’re going to keep going until everybody is out,” Burkett said on ABC.

Miami-Dade Fire Rescue tweeted a new video of their crew lifting a huge piece of rubble off the collapse site using a crane.

The tweet reads, “The work of first responders continues around the clock in the effort to find survivors in void spaces within the rubble of the#SurfsideBuildingCollapse.”

Watch the video:

Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said Sunday that first responders “continued tirelessly throughout the night” in their effort to find survivors of Champlain Towers South collapse in Surfside, Florida.

Levine Cava told CNN a fire that had been complicating search and rescue efforts was brought under control by noon Saturday.

“So that really supported everyone in the efforts so they’ve continued tirelessly throughout the night,” Levine Cava said.

When asked about how she was dealing with family members who are overwhelmed with anxiety and pain as they await news on their loved ones, Levine Cava said she and other officials are working to keep them up to date with the latest information.

“We’ve worked really hard to bring information, timely, to family members,” the mayor said. “We want to be sure they don’t learn about it from the news.

Levine Cava said while “nobody wishes for that terrible news” that a loved one has been recovered deceased, officials are trying to help them understand the different possibilities.

“We’ve also talked with them about the developments, for example with the body parts, finding body parts. Obviously, that’s a very sobering bit of news. Andthey are understanding that that is a possibility so we are talking through what that means, how is the DNA evidence taken, what’s happening with the medical examiner, how they will be notified,” Levine Cava said.

Levine Cava said she was meeting with family members until about midnight last night.

Maggie Castro with Miami Dade Fire Rescue said emotions are high for families of the missing as well as first responders, as the search of the rubble at the Champlain Towers South collapse continues.

“[T]his is an extremely highly emotional situation that these families are in. I can’t even imagine being in a position, as the position that they are in, not knowing, feeling helpless as to not do anything themselves,” Castro said. “[T]hey don’t have anywhere to place these emotions right now, because there is a lot of them. And it’s okay. If they need to direct them at us, we’re more than willing to handle it. We understand that they have to let this emotion out somewhere.”

Castro said it is also a very “emotionality taxing” time for first responders who are combing through the rubble, “we go through our own emotional process.”

“We work hour after hour hoping, because this is what we do, we save people, and this is what we want to do, and we want to bring the family members back to their families. And when we come up empty-handed, it’s difficult for us as well,” she said.

Castro said MDFR is committed to remaining in search and rescue mode for as long as it takes.

“We are not going to go into a recovery mode until we have exhausted every possible measure of finding anyone in this rubble. We are going to go through this entire rubble pile until there is nothing else to go through, and at that point then we may have to consider going to recovery mode,” Castro said.

They are known for responding to hurricanes, but the United Cajun Navy also provides emotional support resources during other types of disasters.

Two emotional support dogs are in Surfside providing support to families anxiously waiting to hear news about their loved ones, according to Yisnery Gomes, an emotional support coordinator for the Florida operations of the United Cajun Navy. Another two dogs will arrive today.The emotional support services are being provided at the Grand Beach Hotel, which is serving as a family reunification and support center.

An emotional support chaplain who works with families and first responders will also arrive to Surfside today, according to Gomes.

Gomes says the United Cajun Navy is working in conjunction with a non-profit called “Boricuas de Corazón Inc Foundation” to provide emotional support volunteers who are bilingual in English and Spanish.

Some family members of the people who remain unaccounted for following aresidential building collapsein South Florida have grown impatient during the slow, painstaking rescue efforts that are likely to continue for days.

A mother who said she is worried about her 26-year-old daughter who is missing after the partial building collapse in Surfside, Florida, desperately urged officials on Saturday to do more.

“I’m a mother. I don’t know the best way to go about this. … Imagine if your children were in there,” the mother told state and local officials as they met with the families of those missing following the collapse.
“I know you’re doing everything you can, but it’s not enough,” she said in an emotional video posted to Instagram Saturday.

The families of the dozens still unaccounted for following Thursday’s partial collapse of a condo building a few miles north of Miami Beach are growing impatient, desperate for faster results from the search and rescue crews who have been digging through the rubble around the clock.

Read more:

SURFSIDE, FLORIDA - JUNE 26: Members of the South Florida Urban Search and Rescue team look for possible survivors in the partially collapsed 12-story Champlain Towers South condo building on June 26, 2021 in Surfside, Florida. Over 150 people are being reported as missing as search-and-rescue efforts continue with rescue crews from across Miami-Dade and Broward counties. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Related article Some families frustrated by pace of search and rescue efforts in Florida building collapse

FEMAAdministrator Deanne Criswell said she will visit Surfside on Sunday at the request of President Joe Biden.

“I’m visiting #Surfside tomorrow at the request of @POTUS to discuss ongoing response efforts with our [FEMA] team, state partners, and first responders,” she tweeted Saturday.

“My heart is with the affected residents and the families still waiting for news about their loved ones.”

Biden also took to Twitter on Saturday to pay tribute to those affected by the tragedy.

“My heart is with the community of Surfside as they grieve their lost loved ones and wait anxiously as search and rescue efforts continue,”he said.

“Yesterday I spoke with Gov. DeSantis to let him know that we are ready to provide assistance as needed by state and local officials.”

Sarina Patel, who has three family members missing after the building’s partial collapse, tells CNN that her loved ones are thankful for the rescuers’ work.

But, she added, her family is starting to get “antsy.”

“We are hanging in there; trying to be strong,” she said.
“Praying for a miracle but starting to get antsy with the lack of updates today. We were hoping for some more news by now as the crew works through the rubble – however, we are forever grateful for their tireless efforts and for putting out the fire today somewhat stabilizing the scene,” Patel said.

She added that she was “praying for all of the victims and their families.”

Patel is the niece of Vishal Patel.He remains missing along with his wife Bhavna Patel, and their daughter Aishani Patel.

Three more deceased victims have been identified in the building collapse at Surfside, the Miami-Dade Police Department said on Saturday night.

A total of five deaths were confirmed by Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava during a press conference.

Stacie Fang, 54, had previously been identified by authorities, as reported by CNN.

The additional three victims were identified as Antonio Lozano, 83, Gladys Lozano, 79, and Manuel LaFont, 54.

Antonio and Gladys Lozano were both recovered from apartment 903.

Antonio was recovered on June 24, and Gladys was found the day after, according to a press release.

LaFont was recovered from apartment 804 on June 25, the release added.

A fifth victim has not yet been identified.

“Rescue workers have been working around the clock as they continue their search and rescue efforts,” the release said.
“This unexpected tragedy has affected many families,loved ones, and our entire community. The Miami-Dade Police Department is committed to honoring and supporting all thoseaffected during this very difficult and emotional process.”

Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said residents can evacuate the other Champlain Tower buildings on a voluntary basis, following the disaster.

The mayor told reporters during a press conference Saturday that the Surfside building officials did a cursory review of the structure at Champlain Towers North and East, two other tower blocks and “didn’t find anything that was out of order.”

“So that’s reassuring but that is not a deep dive,” he added.
“We are going to do a very deep dive into why this building fell down. And I imagine that is going to end up being a very sort of comprehensive project.”

Burkett said he was made aware of a 2018 report detailing structural issues at the site on Saturday.

After speaking with other officials, the decision was made to give residents the information, so they could make the decision on whether to relocate.

Officials are working with FEMA on relocation options.

Burkett said he had spoken with the White House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senators Rick Scott and Rubio as well as Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

He said officials in the state have received tremendous support.

Crews continued to search through the night after human remains were found Saturday, Alan Cominsky, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Chief said during a Saturday night press conference.

Cominsky said the teams at the collapse site were pushing on with an “aggressive search and rescue strategy.”

He added that fire crews were able to contain the blaze that had earlier caused smoke issues during rescue efforts.

The rescuers are continuing to search the entire debris field, separated into multiple sections, he said.

Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levina Cava said that rescuers are using a grid search approach to search the site. They are using sonar equipment and cameras in their efforts and have minimized the use of heavy equipment.

Sen. Marco Rubio said the state department and other federal resources are on site providing any assistance they can.

Five people have now been confirmed dead after search teams found another body in the rubble at the collapsed Champlain Towers, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said at a Saturday night press briefing.

“Today our search and rescue teams found another body in the rubble,” Levine Cava said.
“Our search has revealed some human remains.”

There are now 130 people accounted for and156 unaccounted for, she said.

“Our top priority continues to be search and rescue and saving any lives that we can,” Cava added.

Three of the five victims have been identified, she said.

Officials are not naming the victims out of respect to the families.

Authorities are relying on DNA testing to identify the bodies.

“The process of identifying these victims is very difficult,” Cava said.

“We’re going to be relying on DNA testing. And that is why we’ve already been gathering DNA samples from the family members, so they have all participated and provided DNA to assist us in the investigation.”

Cava added: “This allows us to do rapid DNA testing on site for bodies that we, and we know we identified three bodies in the rubble.”

A structural field survey report completed nearly three years before the collapse of the Champlain Towers south condominium complex in Surfside raised concernsabout structural damage to the concrete slabbelow the pool deck and “cracking and spalling” located in the parking garage.

The report from October 2018 was included in a series of public records documents that were published overnight on theSurfside, Florida town website.The New York Times was the first media outlet to publish a story about the field survey report.

Page seven of the report, the goal of which was to“understand and document the extent of structural issues that require(d) repair and/or remediation in the immediate and near future,”detailed signs of “distress/fatigue” in the parking garage:

“Abundant cracking and spalling of various degrees was observed in the concrete columns, beams and walls. Several sizeable spalls were noted in both the topside of the entrance drive ramp and underside of the pool/ entrance drive/ planter slabs, which included instances with exposed, deteriorating rebar. Though some of this damage is minor, most of the concrete deterioration needs to be repaired in a timely fashion.”

Spalling is a term used to describe areas of concrete that have cracked or crumbled.

The 2018 report also noted that “many of the previous garage concrete repairs” were “failing.”

The report also said the waterproofing below the pool deck was failing and causing“major structural damage.”

“…the waterproofing below the pool deck and Entrance Drive as well as all of the planter waterproofing is beyond its useful life and therefore must all be completely removed and replaced. The failed waterproofing is causing major structural damage to the concrete structural slab below these areas. Failure to replace the waterproofing in the near future will cause the extent of the concrete deterioration to expand exponentially,” the report read.

It further noted that “the replacement of the existing deck waterproofing will be extremely expensive…be disruptive and create a major disturbance to the occupants of this condominium building.”

The report,which didn’t give any indication that the structure was at risk of collapse,was completed by Frank Morabito with Morabito Consultants. CNN reached out to Morabito Consultants on Friday who offered no comment.

An attorney for the building’s condominium association, Kenneth Direktor, warned against early speculation. The building, he told CNN on Friday, had been subject to a series of inspections “over the last several months” as part of its milestone 40-year safety certification process.

“Nothing like this was foreseeable,” Direktor said. “At least it wasn’t seen by the engineers who were looking at the building from a structural perspective.”

CNN reached out to Kenneth Direktor on Saturday for comment.