Death toll in Miami Beach-area condo collapse rises to 46

Forty-six people are now confirmed dead in the partial Miami Beach-area condo building collapse, officials said Wednesday while announcing ten more recovered bodies — the biggest single-day spike in the death toll yet.

With 100 people still unaccounted for, crews have not rescued anyone from the rubble since half of Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Florida crumbled into pile of rubble in less than a minute early on June 24.

Officials are still calling the grueling, nearly-non stop dig a search and rescue mission, though sounding less hopeful as Thursday will mark two weeks since the collapse.

“Right now, we’re in search and rescue mode,” the county’s police director, Freddy Ramirez, said at a news conference Tuesday evening. But he added: “Our primary goal right now is to bring closure to the families.”

Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said the families of the missing were preparing for news of “tragic loss.”

“I think everybody will be ready when it’s time to move to the next phase,” she said.

Levine Cava added that President Joe Biden, who visited the area last week, called Tuesday to offer his continued support.

Weather has continued to hamper the efforts on the pile. While Tropical Storm Elsa was set to make landfall on Florida’s opposite coast, Miami was still seeing its effects with strong winds and rain.

A video released Tuesday by the Miami-Dade County Fire Rescue Department showed dozens working on the pile as tarps and tents waved in the wind and palm trees swayed from side to side.

Workers have been freed to search a broader area since the unstable remaining portion of the building was demolished.

Crews have removed 124 tons of debris from the site, said Miami-Dade Fire Chief Alan Cominsky.

The debris are being sorted and then stored in a warehouse as potential evidence in the investigation into why the building collapsed, officials said.

Documents released by officials revealed previous concerns about the structural integrity of Champlain Towers South. The findings from an engineering consultant, Frank Morabito, showed that there was “abundant cracking” and crumbling in the underground parking garage of the building, according to a 2018 report.

Morabito recommended that concrete slabs, which were “showing distress” by the entrance and the pool deck, “be removed and replaced in their entirety.” He said the concrete deterioration should “be repaired in a timely fashion.”

The National Institute of Standards and Technology, as well as local agencies, are working together to investigate what caused half the building to flatten.