They identify the first victim of the building collapse in Miami

Three of the four people who died after the partial collapse on Thursday of an apartment building in Surfside, north of Miami Beach, Florida, have already been identified, although only Stacie’s name emerged in a statement on Friday. from the Fang family, mother of a young man saved alive.

“There are no words to describe the tragic loss of our beloved Stacie. The members of the Fang-Handler family would like to express our deepest gratitude for the great sympathy, compassion and support we have received.” the family said in a statement. .

Fang, 54, mother of the 15-year-old man rescued alive from the rubble, is the first of four officially recorded deaths after the Champlain Towers building partially collapsed when the northeast wing collapsed in the full early Thursday.

Also this Friday, the number of missing people rose from 99 to 159, following the accident.

Today, the teenager who survived the rubble hours after the collapse and captured by the first cameras to arrive at the scene, who turned out to be Fang’s son, has also been identified.

This is Jonah Handler, 15, a baseball player at Monsignor Edward Pace High School in Miami Gardens, who according to Miami Local 10 television remains admitted to a hospital.

Handler managed to be extracted from the mountain of rubble of the building thanks to the intervention of Nicholas Balboa, who was walking his dog when part of the complex collapsed in 12 seconds and he heard screams for help.

Miami-Dade County Medical Department Director Dr Emma Lew said today that they had managed to identify three of the people who died, although she did not detail their names, according to CNN.

One of the people was alive when he was transferred to a hospital Thursday morning, but then passed away, he picked up the medium.

According to the doctor cited by CNN, they are asking families to give details of their missing loved ones, from characteristic marks, tattoos, dental treatment and scars.

Lew explained that identifying bodies can be difficult depending on the degree of decomposition and exposure to various elements.

At a press conference this afternoon, in which state governor RonDesantis and Miami-Dade mayor Daniella Levine-Cava, it was reported that the numbers remain at four dead, 159 missing and 120 people safe.

The building, with 12 floors and 136 apartments and located on the seafront, was inaugurated in 1981 and has just passed a compulsory inspection for its 40th anniversary.

A total of 55 apartments in the building collapsed while people were sleeping.

At the family reunification center which operates a few blocks from the Champlain Towers, they are starting to take DNA samples from people with missing relatives to facilitate identification when bodies are found in the rubble, the chain reported. NBC TV 6