On Monday, local officials said that they identified the remains of the final missing victim after over a month of the condominium complex collapse near Miami. It adds the total death toll of the disaster to ninety-eight. The death count of the collapse includes ninety-seven residents and rescue workers who discovered their bodies from the rubble in three to four weeks, and one of those victims died in the hospital shortly after the collapse.
In the @CNNSitRoom tonight, we reported the latest development in the Surfside, Florida condo collapse a month ago. All 98 victims have now been identified. May They Rest In Peace and May Their Memories Be A Blessing. pic.twitter.com/v4ccMxtCsQ
— Wolf Blitzer (@wolfblitzer) July 27, 2021
According to Daniella Levine Cava, the Miami-Dade Mayor, they informed and notified all the families of ninety-eight victims. They identified the final victim as a fifty-four-year-old Estelle Hedaya, and local officials notified her family on Monday. In addition, her brother confirmed to the Associated Press, the New York Times, and local TV channel CBS4 about the discovery of her sister’s remains.
What was the background of the disaster?
Levine Cava said on Monday that they could never bring back these 98 people, who left behind grieving belongings, adored friends, loved ones all over the community and across the world. But teams and administration did everything possible to bring an end to the families. Champlain Towers South – a thirteen-story residential building in the beachside Florida town of Surfside – collapsed early in the morning on 24th June.
Source: Web
First responders work efficiently to rescue some residents from the building shortly after the collapse, but several people were reported missing in the mishap, initiating a weeks-long search for both survivors and bodies. But poor weather, first, and the demolition of a still-standing part of the building interrupted the search and rescue operation. So, almost after fifteen days, officials shifted from a search-and-rescue operation to searching for human remains.
The Associated Press reported that the search for human remains officially ended on Friday after the teams carefully removed around thirteen thousand tons of rubble from the scene. Local authorities are still searching through the wreckage from the collapse, seeking more human remains and personal belongings of the complex residents.
Moreover, the federal authorities are collecting some pieces of evidence for investigating the causes of the collapse, as structural professionals question whether structural problems flawed the forty-year-old complex.
Read Also: Search for Missing Ends at Condo Collapse
