SURFSIDE, Fla. — Officials said Friday that the death toll has once again risen more than two weeks after a condominium suddenly collapsed in Surfside.
Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said Friday that 15 additional victims have been recovered from the rubble, bringing the staggering death toll to 79.
"The magnitude of this tragedy is growing each and every day. It's an aching hole in the center of this close-knit family," Levine Cava said.
The mayor said 53 victims have been identified with 61 people potentially still missing and 200 accounted for.
"We have now removed over 13 million pounds of concrete and debris," Levine Cava said. "Sixty trucks a day are working."
Levine Cava said a cat named Binx that resided in the Champlain Tower South was found alive near the site and reunited with its family.
Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said Friday he was pleased with how rapidly the teams are removing building debris from the site.
"The pile that originally was approximately four or five stories is now almost at ground level, so the progress that our search-and-rescue teams are making is really incredible," Burkett said.
Quoting a fire official, Burkett said Thursday that crews will not stop until they've gotten to the bottom of the pile and recovered every victim.
Miami-Dade County Fire Chief Alan Cominsky said Friday that two workers at the site were injured in the past 24 hours.
One person had what Cominsky described as an incident "cardiac in nature" and was taken to a hospital in stable condition.
The second injured person was a task force member who suffered a laceration that required sutures but is in stable condition as well.
Miami-Dade Fire Rescue officials said Wednesday it will likely take several weeks for first responders to reach all of the victims still underneath the rubble.
Separately, Paraguay's foreign minister said in a radio report late Thursday that the body of the sister of that country's first lady was among those found.
Several Latin American citizens were reported in the building when it collapsed.
These are the names of the victims that have been made public at this time.
- Hilda Noriega, 92
- Gino Cattarossi, 89
- Graciela Cattarossi, 86
- Claudio Bonnefoy, 85
- Antonio Lozano, 83
- Gonzalo Torre, 81
- Magaly Elena Delgado, 80
- Leon Oliwkowicz, 80
- Simon Segal, 89
- Gladys Lozano, 79
- Nancy Kress Levin, 76
- Christina Beatriz Elvira, 74
- Elaine Lia Sabino, 71
- Gloria Machado, 71
- Maria Obias-Bonnefoy, 69
- Tzvi Ainsworth, 68
- Francis Fernandez, 67
- Ingrid Ainsworth, 66
- Gary Cohen, 58
- David Epstein, 58
- Andrea Cattarossi, 56
- Bonnie Epstein, 56
- Frank Kleiman, 55
- Staci Dawn Fang, 54
- Manuel LaFont, 54
- Marcus Joseph Guara, 52
- Harold Rosenberg, 52
- Jay Kleiman, 52
- Michael David Altman, 50
- Graciela Cattarossi, 48
- Anna Ortiz, 46
- Anaely Rodriguez, 42
- Ruslan Manashirov, 36
- Juan Alberto Mora Jr., 32
- Luis Bermudez, 26
- Andreas Giannitsopoulous, 21
- Lucia Guara, 10
- Emma Guara, 4
- Maria Teresa Rovirosa, 58
- Luis Lopez Moreira III, 3
- Sophia Lopez Moreira, 36
- Luis Pettengill, 36
- Vishai Patel, 42
- Bhavna Patel, 36
- Deborah Berezdivin, 21
- Juan Alberto Mora, 80
