Florida: The death toll from last week’s condominium collapse in Florida rose on Friday to 20 after search-and-rescue crews found two more bodies, including the seven-year-old daughter of a Miami firefighter, officials said.
The grim, painstaking search for victims in the rubble, which was suspended for most of Thursday over safety concerns, proceeded on Friday with greater caution and a watchful eye on a hurricane that could strike Florida within days.
There are 128 people still missing and feared buried beneath the pulverized concrete, twisted metal and splintered lumber as the search stretched into its ninth day.
The Washington Post reported that new documents provide fresh information about unresolved problems that had blighted the Champlain complex in the years before the catastrophe, and they add to questions about the quality of the original construction of the building.
The search for the cause or causes of the disaster is expected to take many months. Experts said it was too early to reach any conclusions and were divided over whether the flaws identified in the documents reviewed by The Post might have contributed to the collapse.
Photographs of the site taken since the disaster show that part of a ground-level parking deck, under the surviving portion of the building, did sink into the parking garage below. Resident Sara Nir told The Post this week that she saw that part of the parking deck and a nearby pool deck had collapsed shortly before major sections of the building came down.
AP, Reuters and Washington Post
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