A massive search and rescue effort was underway Thursday after a 12-story, oceanside condo building partially collapsed outside Miami, authorities said.
Miami-Dade Rescue Fire said on Twitter that more than 80 units, including technical rescue teams, were on the scene. The building in the town of Surfside, part of Champlain Towers, is an oceanside condo built in 1981 with more than 100 units, according to the Miami Herald.
Authorities had no word yet on casualties, or details of how many people live in the building.
Police blocked nearby roads, and dozens of fire and rescue vehicles, ambulances and police cars converged on the area.
“We’re on the scene so it’s still very active,” said Sgt. Marian Cruz of Miami Dade Fire Rescue. “What I can tell you is the building is 12 floors. The entire back side of the building has collapsed.”
Surfside resident Michael Ruiz told WPLG-TV he lives near the partially collapsed building.
"Before just 2:00 in the morning — I live off of Collins Avenue — and I'm hearing, I would say, about 50 ambulances and fire trucks and fire rescues just driving by," said Ruiz said, who went to the scene and took videos and photos. "So there's a third of the entire building that you cannot see from the street, but it's completely gone in the back, towards the beach side."
Santo Mejil, 50, told the Herald his wife is an overnight caretaker for an elderly woman in the complex. His wife called from a unit on the ninth floor of the south building.
“She said she heard a big explosion. It felt like an earthquake,” Mejil said.
Photos and video from the scene show that the collapse affected half the tower. Piles of rubble and debris surrounded the area just outside the building. The department has yet to say what may have caused the collapse near 88th Street and Collins Avenue.
NBC 6 in South Florida tweeted a photo of firefighters pulling a boy from the rubble of the building. Firefighters were also seen using ladder trucks to rescue people from the high-rise.
No other information was immediately known.
Contributing: The Associated Press.
