Surfside Collapse Day 21: Exhausted Crews Nearing End Of Their Search, Recovery Efforts

MIAMI (CBSMiami) - Exhausted crews are on day 21, and nearing the end, of their search for victims as the site of the Champlain Towers South collapse in Surfside.

As of Wednesday afternoon, 97 victims had been recovered, 90 had been identified and 88 next of kin notified.

Authorities said 240 people have been accounted for and 8 people are potentially unaccounted for.

All 8 of those people have open missing person reports with the Miami-Dade Police Department.

The county's medical examiner's office said every individual that was found in the building collapse will have the same cause of death - blunt force injuries due to building collapse, manner of death: accident.

"It's a scientific, methodical process to identify human remains. As we've said, this work is becoming more difficult with the passage of time," said Miami-Dade Mayor Levine, adding that it is "truly a fluid situation."

Crews have removed more than 22 million pounds of rubble from the site. Search crews were taking great care to identify and preserve any personal property recovered, the mayor added.

"They have given of their heart and soul," Levine Cava said of the crews that have worked around the clock for nearly three weeks. "We are totally walking among superheroes."

It will take much longer for experts to figure out what caused the 12-story Champlain Towers South condominium to fall into a tangled heap of concrete and steel on June 24. The building was set for its four-decade recertification review when it collapsed.

Engineers and others investigating the cause of the collapse have been identifying key pieces of the 40-year-old building to determine what happened, Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said.

"We're looking at how the building lines up with what the plans say," he said.

The search for answers includes an engineer hired by the town of Surfside, a team from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, experts hired by lawyers representing families, and others.

Part of the investigation will include what decisions were made by government building officials and the condominium board, which knew of serious structural problems with the tower as early as fall 2018. Some residents were reluctant to pay assessments in the tens of thousands of dollars for the repairs, leading to acrimonious board meetings.

There is also concern about the stability of Champlain Towers North, a nearly identical building next door built at the same time and by the same developer as its doomed sister structure. So far, no mandatory evacuation order has been given for that building.

"If there were a need to make any changes, they would," Levine Cava said of the north tower.

Discussions continue about what to do with the collapse site with families of the victims, Burkett said. Some residents who escaped the disaster want the tower rebuilt so they can move back in. Others want some kind of memorial site.

"We want the families to tell us what they want to see," Burkett said. "I'm looking forward to having those discussions."

(© Copyright 2021 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)