(CMR) Search and rescue operations are now underway after a 12-story apartment building partially collapsed early this morning in Miami, Florida, killing one person.
It is not clear if others are trapped in the rubble; however, a massive search is being undertaken to find anyone trapped. Eight persons have been hospitalized.
Images showed large sections of the 136-unit oceanside Champlain Towers South, in Surfside, near Miami Beach, which was reportedly built in 1981, in ruins on the ground.
“This is a catastrophic failure of that building. It looks like a bomb went off but we are pretty sure a bomb didn’t go off so it’s something else,” Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett told Today News
“Apparently, when the building came down, it pancaked, so there’s just not a lot of voids that they are finding or seeing from the outside,” added Burkett.
He said there “hadn’t been many hits” for search dogs combing the wreckage.
Investigators are still trying to determine what caused the building to collapse.
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