Television footage showed beds, tables and chairs inside. The collapse, which appeared to affect one leg of the L-shaped tower, tore away walls and ripped open some homes in the still-standing part of the building. “I know it may sound ridiculous what I’m saying but there’s always hope until we hear different.”Ī total of 22 South Americans were missing in the collapse - nine from Argentina, six from Paraguay, four from Venezuela and three from Uruguay, according to officials in those countries. “The hope is that, perhaps, someone hears the call. The family had come to the United States to avoid the COVID-19 outbreak in their home country of Argentina, said Fernandez, of Miami. Nicholas Fernandez spent hours after the collapse trying to call two friends who were staying in the building with their young daughter. “It would be a miracle if they’re found alive,” she added. Teams were trying to enter the building from a parking garage beneath the structure. Video showed fire crews removing a boy from the wreckage, but it was not clear whether he was the same person mentioned by Rollason. In another case, rescuers saved a mother and child, but the woman’s leg had to be amputated to remove her from the rubble, Frank Rollason, director of Miami-Dade emergency management, told the Miami Herald. Hours after the collapse, searchers were trying to reach a trapped child whose parents were believed to be dead. “That is heartbreaking because it doesn’t mean, to me, that we are going to be as successful as we wanted to be in finding people alive.” “The building is literally pancaked,” Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said. Officials did not know how many were in the tower when it fell. By late evening, nearly 100 people were still unaccounted for, authorities said, raising fears that the death toll could climb sharply. Dozens of survivors were pulled out, and rescuers kept up a desperate search for more.Ī wing of the 12-story building in the community of Surfside came down with a roar around 1:30 a.m. A beachfront condo building partially collapsed Thursday outside Miami, killing at least one person and trapping others in the tower that resembled a giant fractured dollhouse, with one side sheared away. The young man dreamed of becoming a manager and working in the field of economics and that is why he had decided to 'fly' to the United States.īut his dream was torn apart by a cruel and mocking fate.SURFSIDE, Fla. In the institute that Claudio had chosen to train and learn the language, in the past few hours, a meeting was organized to remember the 17-year-old. The police listened to peers staying in the college attended by the young man to reconstruct the episode and the last hours of the student's life spent at a party. The US investigators, in fact, have not dissolved the reservations and wait before knowing the outcome of the autopsy to ascertain the reasons for the death. The doctors will have to find out what happened" said his uncle Pietro Benesatto.
"Claudio was not sick, he was very healthy. The family had reached the States just to celebrate Claudio's birthday.
The young man, who died between Thursday and Friday night, would have turned 18 on Saturday.
The family also reports that "a full investigation is underway" and that they intend to take "appropriate action".Ī thread of immense pain has virtually united Battipaglia and New York, the two cities affected by the death of Claudio Mandia. Claudio Mandia, the 17-year-old from Salerno found dead in an American college was "subjected to unimaginable treatments by the administration" of the institute he was attending in New York: the young man's family said in a statement in a statement, who said they were "shocked.