SURFSIDE, Florida (AP) — Four more bodies have been found in the rubble of a collapsed Florida condo tower, a fire official said Wednesday, raising the death toll in the disaster to 16 people.
Miami-Dade Assistant Fire Chief Raide Jadallah told family members at a morning briefing that rescuers found the bodies Tuesday night. He said relatives have not yet been identified.
In addition to the four bodies, crews also found other human remains. Rescuers were able to build a ramp for a crane to reach areas at the top of the pile they had not been access before, Jadallah said.
State Fire Marshal Jimmy Petronis described the ramp as “a Herculean effort” that would allow the use of more heavy equipment.
“Now you are able to leverage massive equipment to remove mass pieces of concrete that could lead to those incredible good news events,” Petronis told Miami television station WSVN.
More than 140 people are still unaccounted for.
The discovery of the bodies came the morning after Florida authorities asked the federal government for an additional rescue team to comb the rubble of the tower, a request that underscored the strenuous nature of the open-ended search for survivors in an area prone to tropical weather.
The possibility that severe weather in coming days could further stretch Florida’s search and rescue resources prompted state officials to ask the federal government for the additional team, Kevin Guthrie of the Florida Division of Emergency Management said Tuesday. Already, intermittent bad weather has caused temporary delays in the search.
Guthrie said the new team, which would likely come from Virginia, would be on hand if severe weather hits the area in coming days and allow crews that have been working at the site for days to rotate out. Authorities said it’s still a search-and-rescue operation, but no one has been found alive since hours after the collapse on Thursday.
“There are two areas of (possible storm) development out in the Atlantic, heading to the Caribbean. We have eight urban rescue teams in Florida. We talked about doing a relief,” Guthrie said at a news conference Tuesday night. “We have all the resources we need but we’re going to bring in another team. We want to rotate those out so we can get more resources out.”
