The death toll from the collapse of a 12-storey Miami apartment block has risen to 28.
- The search for victims paused on Sunday night for the controlled demolition of the half of the building that had remained standing
- Tropical Storm Elsa had threatened to blow the remains over, although forecasters now say the area is likely to avoid the brunt of the storm
- Nobody has been found alive in the wreckage since the early hours of the disaster
Another 117 people remain missing, 11 days after the building collapsed in Surfside, Florida, prompting a search-and-rescue effort that has continued almost around the clock since then.
The search for victims paused on Sunday night local time for the controlled demolition of the half of the building that had remained standing.
Officials decided to bring the rest of the unstable building down because it posed a threat to rescue crews.
That allowed rescue teams to search the entire area beneath the building, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said in a news conference.
“Truly we could not continue without bringing this building down.”
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Previously, certain areas had been off-limits to rescue crews for safety reasons.
Before the demolition, officials reassured families that they had done their best to look for pets which might have been hiding in the standing part of the building.
Tropical Storm Elsa had also threatened to blow the remains over, although forecasters now say the Surfside area is likely to avoid the brunt of the storm as it makes its way north from Cuba.
Nobody has been pulled alive from the mounds of pulverised concrete, splintered timber and twisted metal since the early hours of the disaster in the oceanfront town next to Miami Beach.
“We know that with every day that goes by, it is harder to see a miracle happening,” Maggie Castro, a firefighter and paramedic who briefs families daily, said.
The search for victims paused on Sunday night for the controlled demolition of the half of the building that had remained standing.
Reuters/AP