Florida condo search shifts from rescue to recovery

The search and recuse for victims in the rubble that was once Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Florida, ended on Wednesday as authorities said there is no longer hope that there are any survivors.

Families and loved ones were informed during a private briefing that the effort is coming to an end. Miami-Dade Assistant Fire Chief Raide Jadallah told families that crews would stop using rescue dogs and listening devices but would continue to search for remains.

"Our sole responsibility at this point is to bring closure," he said, as relatives cried in the background. He told families that the announcement was "some of the hardest news I've ever had to deliver in my professional career".

The announcement followed reports from emergency officials who said they sought to prepare families for the worst. "At this point, we have truly exhausted every option available to us in the search-and-rescue mission," Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said at a news conference.

Eight more bodies were recovered from the site of the June 24 collapse, bringing the death toll to 54, the mayor said. Thirty-three of the dead have been identified, and 86 people are still unaccounted for.

Since the remaining part of the building was demolished on Sunday night, 22 victims have been recovered from the rubble, and officials had said the demolition of the remainder of the collapsed condominium building allowed rescue workers to get into areas they couldn't access before.

"When we say recovery, people think that means a big bulldozer comes and takes all debris to a big warehouse … it's not the reality," said Israeli Colonel Golan Vach, who heads a specialized search and rescue unit of the Israel Defense Forces that is working with the South Florida crews. "The reality is that we work with machines, we know where to dig, where to look. We search by hand; we find the victims and the relatives, and we pull them out very carefully."