Miami building collapse: Rescuers search rubble for survivors

23rd June 2021

By BBC

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GETTY IMAGES
image captionIt is still not clear how many people were in the part of the building that fell

A huge rescue operation is under way in Miami-Dade County, Florida, after a 12-storey residential building partially collapsed, killing at least one person.

Rescuers are combing the rubble, searching for any trapped survivors, and were seen pulling a boy out alive.

Images from Surfside, north of Miami Beach, show a pile of debris on one side of the building. At least eight people have been injured.

The collapse is said to have occurred at about 02:00 (06:00 GMT).

Miami-Dade Fire Rescue said it had sent 80 vehicles to the scene. Police are also assisting with the rescue operation.

One man who was out with his brothers walking their dog described hearing the building come down.

"Basically we heard a really big rumble and we thought it was a motorcycle, you know, and we turned around and saw a cloud of dust just coming our way," he told CBS Miami.

"We were like - 'what is going on?' We went rushing toward it with shirts over our faces and the security guard came out and we were, like, 'what happened?' and she said the building collapsed."

A man who witnessed the aftermath of the collapse told CNN, "It looked like something from 9/11," referring to the attacks that brought down the Twin Towers in New York in 2001.

Santo Mejil, 50, was woken when his wife called from a unit on the ninth floor of one of the three buildings that make up Champlain Towers. She is an overnight caretaker for an elderly disabled woman.

"She said she heard a big explosion," Mr Mejil told the Miami Herald. "It felt like an earthquake." His wife was among those rescued.

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