'Search at collapsed Florida condo won't end until all human remains found'

Rescuers won't stop searching at the site of the condo collapse disaster in Surfside, Florida, until all the human remains are found, a local police spokesman said.
Miami-Dade police spokesman Alvaro Zabaleta told reporters on Friday that rescuers have almost reached "the bottom" on the original collapse site, reports Xinhua news agency.

"Does that mean we are almost done with the search? No. Until we clear the entire site and find no more human remains we are not done," Zabaleta said, adding "we are almost there".

According to a news release from Miami-Dade County on Thursday, crews have recovered 97 bodies from the rubble three weeks after the collapse.

Of them, 92 have been identified, and 97 families have been notified.

"Moving forward, out of respect for the families who are still waiting and to ensure we are reporting the most accurate possible numbers, we will only be reporting the number of victims who have been identified," said the release.

The Champlain Towers South, a beach-side condominium, partially collapsed on the early morning of June 24.


One of the deadliest building collapses in US history, the disaster was followed by painstaking rescue efforts, with rescuers having given up looking for survivors since July 7.

No survivors have been found since the early hours after the collapse.-IANS