A well-known Atlanta attorney is on her way to Miami to embrace her daughter, who was in an adjoining Champlain Plaza tower to the building that collapsed early Thursday.
Esther Panitch said her daughter, Miriam, and a friend are thankfully unharmed, but they are distraught that some of their friends are missing and could have been in the other tower when it collapsed.
“One of Miriam’s best friends, her best friend’s boyfriend and some family members of another friend are missing,” Panitch said, adding they were all in town for the funeral of another friend’s father.
Panitch is owner and principal of the Panitch Law Group, PC.
A wing of a 12-story beachfront condo building collapsed with a roar in a town outside Miami early Thursday, killing at least one person while trapping residents in rubble and twisted metal. Rescuers pulled dozens of survivors from the tower during the morning and continued to look for more.
Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett warned the death toll was likely to rise, saying the building manager told him the tower was quite full at the time of the collapse about 1:30 a.m.
“The building is literally pancaked,” Burkett said. “That is heartbreaking because it doesn’t mean to me that we are going to be as successful as we wanted to be in finding people alive.”
About half of the building’s 130 units collapsed, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told a news conference. Rescuers pulled at least 35 people from the wreckage by midmorning, and heavy equipment was being brought in to help stabilize the structure to give them more access, Raide Jadallah of Miami-Dade Fire and Rescue said.
Earlier, Burkett said two people were brought to the hospital, one of whom died. He added that 15 families walked out of the building on their own.
Work is being done on the building’s roof, but Burkett said he did not see how that could have caused the collapse. Authorities did not said what the cause may be.
Gov. Ron DeSantis said officials were “bracing for some bad news just given the destruction that we’re seeing.”
The collapse tore away walls and left a number of homes in the still-standing part of the building exposed in what looked like a giant dollhouse. Television footage showed bunk beds, tables and chairs still left inside. Air conditioner units were hanging from some parts of the building, where wires now dangled.
Miami-Dade Fire Rescue said in a tweet that more than 80 units were “on scene with assistance from municipal fire departments.”
Police blocked nearby roads, and scores of fire and rescue vehicles, ambulances and police cars swarmed the area. Teams of firefighters walked through the rubble, picking up survivors and carrying them from the wreckage.
“We’re on the scene, so it’s still very active,” said Sgt. Marian Cruz of the Surfside Police Department. “What I can tell you is the building is 12 floors. The entire back side of the building has collapsed.”
The collapse appeared to affect one leg of the L-shaped tower. Piles of rubble and debris surrounded the area just outside the building, and cars up to two blocks away were coated with a light layer of dust from the debris.
The seaside condo development was built in 1981 in the southeast corner of Surfside.
The area has a mix of new and old apartments, houses, condominiums and hotels, with restaurants and stores serving an international combination of residents and tourists. The community provides a stark contrast from the bustle and glitz of nearby South Beach with a slower-paced neighborhood feel.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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