Surfside crews shift to recovery

Rescue teams at Champlain Towers South paused for a moment of silence at 1:20 a.m. on Thursday to mark two weeks since part of the condo building collapsed, claiming at least 60 lives. Eighty people are still missing, but it is not known whether all were in the building at the time. In a private briefing on Wednesday, authorities told waiting families they no longer expect to find survivors and would focus on recovering victims’ bodies. K-9 teams and sensors have not indicated any signs of life in the rubble since the first few hours after the collapse in Surfside, Fla.

What happens now? Experts said crews will most likely search one part of the debris pile at a time for human remains, transport it away, and then move to the next section as they remove layers of floors. Crew members are also collecting valuables such as cellphones, photo albums, jewelry, and legal documents and cataloging them to return to surviving residents and families. Religious leaders are also on-site to perform death rites as bodies are recovered.

Dig deeper: Read WORLD’s ongoing coverage of the condo collapse.