Endless wait for loved ones after building collapses near Miami
The death toll from the partial collapse of a building in Surfside, near Miami, is nine dead and 152 missing.
REUTERS - MARCO BELLO
Text by: RFI Follow
4 min
Four days after the collapse of a twelve-story building on Thursday, June 24, the toll has hardly changed: nine dead and still more than 150 people missing.
And if officially the search continues to find the missing, hope is weakening hour by hour.
The beginning of an impossible mourning for families and for the town of Surfside.
Publicity
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With our special
correspondent at Surfside,
Loïg Loury
The noise of the grinders, a gigantic crane in action under a blazing sun ... Four days after the disaster, the emergency services are activated as in the first to find survivors.
“
We are going to get people safe and sound from this rubble.
That's what we're going to do today, tomorrow, the next day, and more after.
And I expect miracles!
Charles Burkett, the mayor of Surfside, promised.
But the miracle is long overdue and hope is dwindling, even if some cling to it.
Kim, a Surfside resident, understands it perfectly:
“People cling to that hope, because they are so helpless in the face of such immediate death.
You see a person on Monday and the next day they are no longer there, it's very hard to take.
"
A process specific to each in which the relatives of the missing are accompanied.
Rabbi Noah Weinstein came to Surfside to help the large Jewish community there
:
“
Some people are happy to see the rubble and they draw their conclusions, no matter what.
But others cannot accept what is happening.
What do we do with them?
You have to be kind and kind.
"
And hope for this miracle for the 152 missing and their relatives once again authorized to come and flower the improvised memorial near the site.
"
We really have the impression that this is a field of war
"
Rescue operations are slow, made difficult by fires that broke out under the rubble. Olivia Binn Ostrow volunteered. This French patron of the French bistro O'Gourmet distributed food to the rescuers. “
It's a war zone, there is smoke coming out from absolutely everywhere. It is not possible to breathe there, she
tells the microphone of
Heike Schmidt
.
There are fires that are being extinguished and it is still four days after! There are balconies that are half crushed, I don't know how to explain but it really feels like it's a war ground.
"
But this Surfside resident, who has been living in Florida for 20 years, does not understand why the federal state is not sending reinforcements and that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis did not declare a state of emergency immediately. She also points to the poor condition of the building. "
I think it took DeSantis two days to declare a state of emergency for the state of Florida, it's already too long!
I tell you frankly: I wake up every morning, and I'm not the only one, I think everyone prays and we go to bed with the feeling that there are almost 160 people who are at hand and who died, and if they are not with us today, could they have been saved?
I don't know, but it's very long.
All these people who are waiting to hear from their children, from their grandparents…
”
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