The Florida Surface Mayor expressed concern Thursday that part of the south of the Sampline Towers could still collapse.
“We fear the building could collapse further,” Mayor Charles Burkett told CNN affiliate WSVN.
“The problem is that the building has actually collapsed. It has fallen, i.e., there are only centimeters between floors which were 3 meters. It’s heartbreaking because it does not mean we are going to be as successful as we want to be to find living people, “said Burkett.
Burkett said the building was built in the 1980s.
“There’s no reason this building should collapse, if someone pulls support from below, or gets knocked down, or a sump or something like that collapses,” Burkett said. The decline of this nature is “less than lightning.”
It is unclear how many people the mayor is missing, but it is estimated that at least 30 units may have been affected.
Burkett told the subsidiary that the dogs were stopped at midnight, but, in a very dangerous and dark condition, “they were not attacked.”
Burkett praised firefighters and first responders for continuing their efforts despite the building collapsing.
“Those guys, those people deserve all of our respect and credit, we can give them something else because they are real heroes,” Burkett said.