Four people are dead and dozens more are missing after part of the 12-story Champlain Towers South condominium collapsed on Thursday.
Rescue teams have been on the scene looking for survivors since the structure fell in Surfside, Florida, reported NBC 6. On Friday, Miami-Dade mayor Daniella Levine Cava confirmed four people were killed. About 120 people have been recovered from the rubble and additional 156 people remain unaccounted for.
A video taken by an onlooker showed the entire collapse, which occurred in less than 30 seconds. Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett warned the death toll may rise since the building was full when it went down.
“The building is literally pancaked, it has gone down, and I mean there’s just feet in between stories where there were 10 feet,” Burkett said during a news conference. “That is heartbreaking because it doesn’t mean to me that we’re gonna be as successful as we would want to be to find people alive.”
A cause has not been determined but experts believe rising sea levels spurred by climate change might have been a factor.
“Sea level rise does cause potential corrosion and if that was happening, it’s possible it could not handle the weight of the building,” Zhong-Ren Peng, professor and director of the University of Florida’s International Center for Adaptation Planning and Design, explained to The Palm Beach Post. “I think this could be a wakeup call for coastal developments.”
Findings from Florida International University Professor Shimon Wdowinski found the land under the building has been sinking since the 1990s. However, he isn’t certain that caused the building to fall.
“It appears to be something very localized to one building, so I would think the problem was more likely to be related to the building itself,” he told The Washington Post.
Surfside Vice Mayor Tina Paul told the newspaper the building passed an inspection this week.
