Article author:
Associated Press
Adriana Gomez Licon And Curt Anderson ()
Surfside, Florida (AP) — A 12-story oceanfront condo surfside, Florida, at midnight a year ago. The building in Florida came down with a thunderous roar, leaving behind a huge pile of rubble and killing 98 people. This is one of the deadliest collapses in US history.
The disaster at Champlain Towers South was also the largest emergency response in Florida's history without a hurricane.
Victims were honored at a ground event on Friday, and during the two weeks of June and July last year, rescue teams descended from other parts of Florida, far from Mexico and Israel. , A local team piles up and searches for victims.
Friday's proceedings include a private overnight gathering for families to light a torch. First Lady Jill Byden will be speaking at a public event hosted by the town of Surfside.
Only two teenagers and one woman survived the fall and were pulled from the rubble, while others escaped from the part of the building where they originally stood.
Images of the rescue of one survivor were widespread, with a glimpse of hope shortly after the collapse, but a long and rigorous search, as the family waited so badly just to learn about the body of a loved one. It had almost catastrophic results.
Missing in the collapse was the 7-year-old daughter of a firefighter who helped with the search, who later turned out to be dead with her mother, her aunt, and grandparents. I did. A woman who heard a cry for help early on, but suddenly stopped. And the four and eleven sisters pulled out of the rubble were small enough to be buried in the same casket. A 12-year-old girl sat down and prayed across the rubble for the doctor's father, who was finally found dead.
Victims were not only locals, but also Orthodox Jews, Latin Americans, Israelis, Europeans, and visitors from the northeast. Was included.
The cause of the collapse is under investigation by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and this month there is a probe entering a new stage for cutting and drilling concrete and steel. Champlain Towers South has a long history of maintenance issues, using crude construction techniques in the early 1980s. Other possible factors include rising sea levels due to climate change and damage from saltwater intrusion.
Pablo Langesfeld, the father of a 26-year-old lawyer who married and moved to a building months before the collapse, said he would not be closed until the investigation was completed. ..
"This is a never-ending nightmare," Langesfeld told The Associated Press.
The place where the building stood was cleaned flat.
The investigation is expected to take years, but the judge approved over $ 1 billion in compensation settlements for the victims on Thursday.
Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Michael Handsman praised the dozens of lawyers involved, and the woman who lost his daughter called them heroes in black robes and business suits.
Handsman said the indemnity contract was extraordinary in its scope and speed.
"This reconciliation is the best we can do. It's an amazing result," he said.
