the official death toll is 4 and a methodical search for survivors has been resumed

However, local authorities reported that hundreds of firefighters and rescuers continued to work to locate survivors in the rubble of the collapse that left four dead and 159 missing.

Anguish and anger arise because, like this neighbor, other inhabitants fear that the negligence around safety in the construction of the building was determining in the disaster.

“That there, where they told us that there are hundreds of workers to evacuate people and try to rescue them, it is not at all a rescue operation, it is nothing”, said Wachsmann, who has parents and best friend Chaim Rosenberg missing.

landslide in Miami

Wachsmann left New York with Mike Salberg, Rosenberg’s nephew, hours after the disaster and rented an apartment in the building next to the Champlain towers, with a direct view of operations.

“My uncle’s apartment is right there, where you see that purple column by the screen door,” Salberg said, pointing to what was the second floor of the building.

“Not a single rescuer has tried to lift the rubble, little by little, even by hand, without machines, to eventually evacuate people,” he said, estimating that there could be survivors stranded in air bubbles.

In this context, the authorities say they understand the frustration of the families.

“We give them information twice a day on the details of the operations,” Miami County Mayor Dade said Friday evening. Daniella Levine Cava.

“There is still hope,” he said, noting that in such disasters many victims could be found alive “a week after” the events occurred.

Other survivors are asking for explanations for a possible structural failure of the building, since according to a 2020 study, the property experienced a “very subtle” sag in the 1990s.

“I was able to go out, but I want answers,” says Janette Agüero, 46 ​​years old. “The families of the victims deserve it, and someone has to be responsible. Someone has to pay,” said the woman who was with her husband and two children on the eleventh floor of the building, and feeling like “a earthquake “came down through the stairs with his family and managed to escape the disaster.