Throughout the weekend, rescue crews combed through the wreckage of the partially collapsed Champlain Towers South building in Surfside, Fla.
Emergency crews have been working at the location around the clock since part of the condo building came crashing down around 1:30 a.m. last Thursday.
Local officials have regularly held media briefings to update the public about recovery efforts. Miami-Dade Police have been sharing the names of victims online once they have been identified and their families have been contacted.
Here’s what we know at the start of the week:
The death toll climbs to 11 and recovery efforts continue
A man hangs a photo of a missing person on a fence near the site of the oceanfront condo building that partially collapsed in Surfside, Fla.
Gerald Herbert/AP
The official death toll has climbed to 11, officials announced at a press conference on Monday. The number of people unaccounted for is 150, with 136 now accounted for.
Authorities have publicly identified eight of the ten victims of the building collapse. They range in age from 26 to 83.
The names as they were released by Miami-Dade Police on Twitter are: Leon Oliwkowiicz, 80; Luis Bermudez, 26; Anna Ortiz, 46; Christina Beatriz Elvira, 74; Stacie Fang, 54; Gladys Lozano, 79, and Antonio Lozano, 83; Manuel “Manny” LaFont, 54.
What We Know About The Victims Of The Champlain Towers Collapse
Families of the known victims had the opportunity to privately visit the site on Sunday, according to Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava.
She urged family members who have not yet filed a missing persons report to talk to a detective and to have their DNA taken so that police can match that information with any remains found.
“This will be critically important for our identification,” she said at a press conference.
Levine Cava said detectives still haven’t been able to reach the families of all people missing in the collapse.
Details of potentially long-standing structural issues with the condominium building came to light Saturday.
A structural engineering report dated Oct. 8, 2018, and provided to the Champlain Towers condominium association found widespread problems that required extensive repairs “in the near future.”
The nine-page report, authored by Morabito Consultants, listed several areas of concern with the 40-year-old building.
The report detailed significant cracks and breaks in the building’s concrete, “which required repairs to ensure the safety of the residents and the public.”
There was, according to this report, “major structural damage” to the concrete structural slab below the pool deck caused by waterproofing that was “beyond its useful life.”
The report also warned of “abundant cracking and spalling” in the concrete columns, beams and walls. Earlier repairs to the garage had been done improperly, the report found.
At the time the building collapsed, work had been done on the roof only and not on concrete restoration.
Despite the engineering report that warned of potentially devastating problems in the building, a Surfside, Fla., official told Champlain Towers South residents the building was safe.
Sunday that just one month after the engineering report warned of “major structural damage,” a town inspector met with residents of the building and assured them it was “in very good shape.”
Minutes of a November 2018 meeting showed that Surfside’s town inspector, Ross Prieto, was there to discuss the report.
Local officials told reporters Saturday that they knew nothing about the report before its release over the weekend.
