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The rubble of the demolished section of the Champlain Towers South building is seen through flowers on a makeshift memorial to the scores of victims of the building's partial collapse, July 12, 2021, in Surfside, Florida, the U.S. /Reuters
The search for victims in the condo collapse incident in Surfside, the U.S. state of Florida, neared the end, with death toll now standing at 97, local authorities said on Thursday, exactly three weeks after the disaster happened.
In the weeks-long search, 240 people are accounted for, 97 victims have been recovered, 90 of whom have been identified and 88 next of kin have been notified, according to a release from Miami-Dade County. Eight people are potentially unaccounted for, all of whom have open missing persons reports with the Miami-Dade Police Department.
Speaking of the rescue crews, a Miami-Dade police spokesman was cited by The Washington Post in a Thursday report as saying, "They're almost at the bottom to be able to say, we've reached rock bottom, we've searched every inch of this property and that's when we say, 'Okay, we're done.'"
Alvaro Zabaleta, the spokesman, said the search for any other possible victims would continue, adding it remained unclear how long the process may last.
The Champlain Towers South, a beach-side condominium, partially collapsed in the early morning of June 24.
Source(s): Xinhua News Agency