The death toll in a condo building collapse in Surfside, Florida, has risen to 60, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said, after authorities made the decision to shift the search effort from rescue to recovery. Eighty people are "potentially unaccounted for," the mayor said in a news conference on Thursday morning, two weeks after the Champlain Towers South condo building collapse, which is among the deadliest building collapses in US history, not including acts of terror or fires. Authorities transitioned to search and recovery at midnight overnight, after determining "the viability of life in the rubble" was low, Miami-Dade County Fire Chief Alan Cominsky said Wednesday. Still, Levine Cava said Thursday the recovery effort is "proceeding just as rapidly with just as many people on the pile," and authorities are "taking as much care as ever" to find victims. "We are working around the clock to recover victims and to bring closure to the families as fast as we possibly can," she said. Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett, however, said authorities still hope for the best. "We are still praying for a miracle," he said. "We haven't given up all hope." Search and recovery teams paused the work at 1:20 a.m. to honor the victims, the mayor said. At the edge of the rubble, first responders, officials, faith leaders and journalists bowed their heads for a moment of silence Wednesday evening, honoring those who lost their lives under the debris. The scene was largely monochromatic: gray concrete, gray drywall, gray rebar and gray dust still on the paws of a search dog who stood at attention for the moment of silence. But color could be found just around the corner, where a makeshift shrine adorned the fence of a tennis court with flowers, photos and a sign that read, "Miami-Dade Search and Rescue mourns with you." Faith leaders offered prayers, and at one point an impromptu religious procession unfolded as sisters in brown robes lit candles and marched with a priest holding a statue of Our Lady of Fatima. Each victim recovered is "handled with extreme care and compassion," Levine Cava said in Thursday's news conference. Faith leaders, including rabbis, have been embedded with search and recovery workers and they're working with police to handle the remains of Jewish victims in a way that's consistent with their faith, she said. "We have a tent designated on-site and when a Jewish body is discovered, a prayer is performed and specific protocols are followed to honor both the faith traditions and the integrity of the investigation," Levine Cava said. Authorities are also collecting all manner of personal items, like legal or identifying documents, photos, wallets and credit cards, cell phones and tablets. Any currency, firearms and safes are also being set aside. The way the building collapsed gave people inside the lowest probability of survival, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Assistant Fire Chief of Operations Raide Jadallah said Wednesday, referring to it as a "pancake." "The other factors that we have to include, you know, the fact that we did not get in the alert (from) a K-9, a sensor trip forward, sound, and any visual utilizing our cameras. The last known alert that we received was in the initial hours the day of the collapse," Jadallah said. — CNN
