More Than 50 People Still Unaccounted For In Surfside Building Collapse

This is all so frightening.

Source: Joe Raedle / Getty

More than 50 people are still unaccounted for and one person is dead after a condo building suddenly collapsed in Surfside, Florida. Search and rescue is still ongoing after Champlain Towers South, a 12-story residential building built in 1981, collapsed without warning around 1:30 a.m.

CNN reports that about 55 of the building’s 136 units collapsed and two people have been safely pulled out of the rubble. Several others were helped from standing portions of the building located near 88th Street and Collins Avenue in Surfside.

“We are going to do everything we can possibly to identify and rescue those who have been trapped in the rubble,” Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said Thursday morning about the collapse.

The cause of the collapse remains unclear, however, people in the area said work was being done on the roof of the building with the use of heavy equipment. The Mayor said however that that is unlikely the cause of the collapse and believes it was actually a sinkhole.

Witnesses and survivors reported hearing a loud boom or a “big rumble” before seeing plumes of dust and debris.

Kimberly Morales told CNN she lives in a building across the street from the collapse and was awakened by alarms going off and pounding on her door.

“I woke everyone up in the room because when I looked out the window, I saw everyone outside,” she told CNN. “I told everyone to hurry up and leave the building.”

Morales said she didn’t hear the collapse but when she went outside, she saw a significant portion of the building was missing. She’s now in a community center with other evacuees, she said.

Can you even imagine?!

Source: Joe Raedle / Getty

Prayers to all the residents and family members affected by the building collapse in Surfside, Florida.