[imagesource: Reuters / Marco Bello]

In the early hours of yesterday (Thursday) morning, a 12-storey apartment block partially collapsed in Miami near the beachfront.

There’s video footage showing a huge section of the building crashing to the ground in a pile of rubble.

Sky News reports that 99 people remain unaccounted for and one person is confirmed dead, with the number of those missing changing as the search continues for survivors.

Miami-Dade mayor Daniella Levine Cava is updating the number of missing people and says that 102 people have been found safe.

But four Venezuelan citizens, nine Argentinian citizens, six Columbian citizens, and a family of three from Colombia are all missing and feared to have been in the apartment block when it crashed down.

Champlain Towers South in the town of Surfside, Florida, was built in 1981 and has more than 100 residential units.

Barry Cohen, 63, and his wife were removed from the scene with no injuries, but say they raised concerns years ago about whether nearby construction might be causing damage to the building after seeing cracked paving on the pool deck.

NBC News also reports that the Champlain Towers condo building began sinking years ago, but it’s unclear if that continued or contributed to its collapse.

Police cordoned off nearby roads on Thursday, with scores of 80 fire and rescue vehicles, ambulances, and police cars deployed in the area.

This footage, showing the moment of the collapse, was captured by a camera on a nearby building:

More on the investigation into why the building collapsed, via NBC News:

President Joe Biden has offered federal assistance and support:

A White House official said: “Our hearts go out to the families of those who lost their beloved as a result of this horrific incident – and to those families who wait in anguish as search-and-rescue teams assess the situation.”

Mrs Levine Cava posted on Twitter that she had signed a “declaration of local state of emergency” that will begin to allocate the necessary resources need to respond to the disaster.

Surfside mayor Charles Burkett confirmed that everyone is working hard with “resources like you can’t believe” to save as many people from the rubble as possible.

[source:skynews]