Death toll rises to 18 nearly a week after Florida condo collapse, 145 missing

Search and rescue teams look for possible survivors and remains in the partially collapsed 12-story Champlain Towers South condo building in Surfside, Florida

Six more bodies have been found in the ruins of a Miami-area condominium tower, officials said on Wednesday, bringing the confirmed death toll to 18 nearly a week after the building collapsed. Nobody has been pulled alive from the mounds of pulverized concrete, splintered lumber and twisted metal since the early hours of the disaster on June 24 in the oceanfront town of Surfside, Florida, adjacent to Miami Beach. Authorities put the number of people missing and feared trapped in the ruins of the Champlain Towers South condo at 145. Two of the 18 confirmed fatalities were children, aged 10 and 4, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told a news conference. ‘The loss of children is too great to bear,’ Levine Cava said. ‘Our community, our nation and the world all are mourning with these families who have lost loved ones.’