Video shows South Florida building collapse
SURFSIDE, Fla. - New video shows the moment when a beachfront condo partially collapsed in South Florida early Thursday morning, killing at least two people and trapping others in the rubble.
The surveillance video obtained by WSVN shows the Champlain Towers South Condo building as it went down around 1:20 a.m. The building is located at 8777 Collins Avenue in Surfside, north of Miami Beach.
The collapse set off a massive search-and-rescue operation at the site. More than 80 Miami-Dade Fire Rescue units responded to the scene, and rescue crews from other cities also responded to assist.
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They said 35 occupants were pulled from the structure and two were rescued from the rubble.
Ten people on site were treated, two of those were transported to the hospital. Two people have been confirmed dead, as of Thursday evening. There are 136 units in the condo building.
Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett warned that the death toll was likely to rise, saying the building manager told him the tower was quite full at the time of the collapse around 1:30 a.m., but the exact number of people present was unclear.
"The building is literally pancaked," Burkett said. "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."
Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said as of 5 p.m., 102 residents had been accounted for but at least 99 had not — though some of those missing may not have been in the building at the time of the disaster. The tower has a mix of seasonal and year-round residents, and while the building keeps a log of guests staying, it does not keep track of when owners are in residence, Burkett, the mayor, said.
Gov. Ron DeSantis said officials were "bracing for some bad news just given the destruction that we’re seeing."