Remaining Florida condo tower demolished so rescuers can keep searching
Demolition experts brought down the rest of the partially collapsed Champlain Towers South condominium in Surfside, Florida, on Sunday. Search crews paused their recovery efforts on Saturday as Tropical Storm Elsa threatened to hit the area and authorities shifted to a rushed demolition. Miami-Dade County officials had planned to have the building torn down later, but concerns that the storm could knock it down forced them to speed up the timetable.
Almost immediately after the dust began to settle, cranes started moving again as rescue crews resumed their work. Rescuers hope the demolition will help speed up the search effort, as the remaining tower had made it impossible to access about one-third of the existing debris pile, The Washington Post reports. The June 24 collapse killed at least 24 people. More than 120 remain missing.
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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.
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