A wing of a 12-story condominium collapsed Thursday morning in the town of Surfside, Florida, near Miami Beach, killing at least one person and injuring dozens with 99 people still unaccounted for. An extensive search and rescue operation currently is happening around the building.
Authorities announced during the morning briefings that the collapse happened at 1:30 a.m. Thursday. Of the building’s 136 units, 55 units collapsed.
Raide Jadallah, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue’s assistant chief, added that 35 people have been evacuated so far and two have been rescued from the rubble of the collapsed building.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) expressed his condolences while revealing that he is ‘bracing for some bad news.’
“It’s a really, really tragic situation,” DeSantis said, speaking at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa. “We’ll hope for the best in terms of additional recoveries, but we are bracing for some bad news just given the destruction that we’re seeing.”
DeSantis arrived at the site at 12 p.m. where he held a news conference to further brief about the rescue effort.
