Some of the 98 people killed after the Champlain Towers South crumbled to ground in southern Florida seem to have survived for hours after the initial collapse, but were not rescued by crews in time.
Some of the 98 people killed after the Champlain Towers South crumbled to ground in southern Florida appear to have survived for hours after the initial collapse, but were not rescued by crews in time. As many as nine victims, or about 10% of the death toll, remained alive and buried under the mountains of debris after parts of the 12-story residential building in Surfside, a quiet neighborhood just outside of Miami Beach, caved in on June 24 around 1:25 a.m. According to fire logs obtained by USA Today, one woman survived for as many as 10 hours after the worst building collapse in modern U.S. history. The collapse triggered a weeks-long search for survivors, which relied on sonar and the use of canines, who signaled potential live victims on two separate occasions around 6:42 a.m. and 7:44 a.m. At 11:05 a.m., about 10 hours after the condo caved in, the logs noted that rescuers “lost voice contact” with a female victim and requested backup and canines to scour the basement. Just more than 10 minutes later, crews asked for “new chipping hammer and power supply.” At 11:50 a.m., everyone was directed “out of the hole” so that canines could enter, USA Today reported. While the outcome of the rescue effort was not made clear in the fire logs, Fire Chief Alan Cominsky of Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, during a July 1 press conference, said crews “were searching for a female voice for several hours.
