‘Excruciating:’ Florida collapse search stretches to Day 6

SURFSIDE, Florida (AP) – It’s Day 6 of a painstaking effort to find survivors after after the collapse of a beachfront Florida condominium.

Twelve stories of debris have flattened like a stack of pancakes, with layer upon layer of wreckage frustrating efforts to find pockets where someone might have survived.

It’s deliberate work, and treacherous: Thunderstorms rolled through Surfside Tuesday, and debris fell overnight from the shattered edge of the remaining building.

Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said rescuers marked a “don’t go beyond here” line and are searching farther from the structure. The confirmed death toll stands at 11, with 150 people still unaccounted for.

Meanwhile, about a block from the Miami-area beachfront condominium tower that collapsed sits its sister building.

It was erected a year later by the same company, using the same materials and a similar design.

It has faced the same tides and salty air. This has made some residents of Champlain Towers North worried enough to leave, though most have remained, saying they are confident their almost 40-year-old, 12-story building is better maintained.

They say their building doesn’t have the same problems with cracking in support beams and in the pool area that 2018 engineering reports show the south tower had.