Surfside condo collapse: Death toll rises to 94

SURFSIDE, Fla. — Search crews scouring the rubble of the Champlain Towers South condo building have recovered four more victims of last month’s deadly partial building collapse, raising the death toll to 94, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said Monday.

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“Our team has continued as ever to work diligently to make progress on the collapse and to recover the remains and bring closure to the families as quickly as we possibly can,” she said at a news briefing. “Through search and recovery, we have confirmed additional victims.”

Of those so far recovered, the mayor said 83 have been identified and 80 next-of-kin notifications have been made. Cava said work to identify victims is ongoing.

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“The process of making identifications has become more difficult as time goes on and the recovery, at this point, is yielding human remains,” she said. At this still in the recovery process, we must rely heavily on the work of the medical examiner’s office. They’re undertaking technical and scientific processes to identify the human remains.”

As of Monday, officials said 222 people have been accounted for, while 22 others remain “potentially unaccounted for.”

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The 12-story Champlain Towers South partially collapsed in the pre-dawn hours of June 24, as many of the building’s residents were sleeping. Authorities said 55 of the building’s 136 units collapsed during the incident.

Crews have searched for signs of victims nearly nonstop since first responding to the incident before 2 a.m. on June 24. Efforts have been paused several times due to inclement weather, and once to allow for the demolition of the part of the building left standing as a tropical storm approached the region.

The cause of the building collapse remains under investigation.

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