A massive condo building with residents inside has horrifically collapsed in Florida, leaving its residents trapped and unaccounted for in the field of rubble.
Early Thursday morning, the 12-story residential building in the Surfside neighborhood of Florida—about one mile north of Miami Beach—can be seen on video footage collapsing in on itself and falling to the ground in a heap of rubble and dust.
Videos by VICE
First the middle portion of the building is seen crumbling down, with bright flashes popping through the smoke. Moments later, the building’s right side collapses and smashes down on the middle portion that fell. That’s when a cloud of smoke completely engulfed the rest of the complex, and nearby palm trees.
Now, the building stands in pieces, with residents’ units and their porches, 12-stories up, ripped in half and yard furniture hanging off the edge of the building that’s intact. Piping and cement is ladened across the street below. The collapse looked like a planned implosion on a construction site—but officials say it was anything but planned.
“This is a horrific catastrophe,” said Surfside Mayor Charles W. Burkett in a press conference, according to CNN. “In the United States, buildings just don’t fall down.”
Officials said in a Thursday evening press conference that the building collapsed because of a “structural engineering question,” and that engineers are on scene to assess further. No further information was given on what caused the collapse.
The building fell down at about 1:30 a.m. Thursday, with approximately 55 units impacted by the collapse. In an update on Thursday afternoon, police said that 99 building residents are missing, one is confirmed dead, and 11 have been injured. Another 102 residents have been accounted for so far, 37 of which were pulled from the building, with the help of human crews and a K9 unit. The mayor of Miami-Dade County, Daniella Levine Cava, said that she has signed an emergency order to bring in funds from FEMA to assist in recovery efforts.
Officials said that “banging” can be heard periodically underneath the rubble, but no voices or shouts were audible as of Thursday afternoon.
Miami-Dade Fire search and rescue teams have been working all day and will continue to work to pull residents from the rubble, officials said in a press conference early Thursday. They also said that the investigation into what happened will take multiple days.
Some witnesses of the collapse immediately began searching for survivors, CNN reported. One nearby resident of Surfside told the outlet he was walking his dog when he felt the ground shake and smoke spring up into the air. He rushed to the scene and saw a boy’s hand sticking out through the rubble.
“He was sticking his hand up … through the debris,” Nicholas Balboa told CNN in an interview. “And I could see his hand and his fingers wiggling.”
Balboa saved the boy, who was being crushed under a mattress frame.
Some displaced residents have been put up in nearby hotels, officials said.
Police have established a reunification center for survivors of the collapse to meet, and for family members to go in search of loved ones who lived in the building.
This article has been updated throughout to reflect recent developments.
