1 dead after dozens of homes partially collapsed

A huge search and rescue effort is underway in early Thursday after part of a 12-story apartment building collapsed in the South Florida town of Surfside, leaving dozens unaccounted for. One person is dead, Surfside Mayor Charles W. Burkett said. Two people have been removed from the rubble at Champlain Towers South since the crash occurred around 1:30 a.m., Miami Jade Dade Fire Rescue chief Ray Jadallah said without addressing their conditions. About 55 of the 136 units in the building collapsed, Jadallah said, leaving huge piles of beach and materials left in the beach community north of Miami Beach. A witness said a rescuer helped a boy from the wreckage, and in the video others were shown helping to leave standing parts of the building, sometimes using a bucket on a fire truck ladder. “We will do everything we can to identify and rescue those trapped among the debris,” Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said Thursday morning. In addition to the two taken from the rubble, other 35 parts of the building were helped to stand, Jadallah said. At around 5 a.m., at least 51 people were found, and Miami County Dade Commissioner Sally Heyman told CNN that they were missing on a regular emergency line in the region. Andy Slater’s surveillance video obtained by local Fox Sports radio anchor shows the collapse: a huge section of the building collapsed first, and then another part about nine seconds later. A resident of the third floor, Barry Cohen, heard it as if it were an explosion. His apartment was intact, but when he opened the door and tried to walk away, “he looked down the hall … and there was nothing,” he said. “It was just a pile of dust and debris,” and the building trembled as it waited for a rescue, Cohen told CNN on “New Day.” After about 20 minutes, a rescue team used a cherry picker from the balcony to help his wife and another neighbor, he said. #New Room #CNN #News.

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