SURFSIDE, Fla. — Rescuers have recovered another four bodies in the wreckage of the Champlain Towers condominium collapse, bringing the total to nine dead and 156 still missing since the Surfside building collapsed early Thursday.
The new bodies were discovered along with "additional human remains" in a trench dug into the rubble to add search and rescue teams scouring the mountain of debris.
"We are making every effort to identify those others that have been recovered," Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said in a Sunday morning news conference.
Late Saturday night, officials released the names of three more identified victims: Anthony Lozano, 83, and Gladys Lozano, 79, who lived in apartment 903, and Manuel LaFont, 54, who was in apartment 801.
Police identified 54-year-old Stacie Fang, who lived in apartment 1002, on Friday.
A few blocks from the ongoing recovery mission, worshippers gathered at St. Joseph's Catholic church in Miami Beach for a Mass to mourn the victims and hold faith for the missing. One of the missing, an 11-year-old girl, received her first Communion there. She and her entire family are unaccounted for.
Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said he "believes arrangements are being made" for families to get closer to the rubble on Sunday so they can pray and mourn.
From helicopter shots, it's clear that at least two cranes and two backhoes are now on scene. When asked if the mission is going to turn from rescue to recovery, Burkett said no. The heavy equipment is on-site, but "it is going to be a rescue mission for the indefinite future."
"We are not stopping until we pull every resident out of that rubble," he said.
Speaking from the command center early Sunday, Levine Cava said officials are having "very frank conversations" with the families at the reunification center about the possibility of finding no more survivors.
"The firefighters and others who've briefed them are very direct about the situation, that we are continuing to search. We do continue to hope that we find people, but certainly they're aware that we're finding remains and even that we're finding body parts so they're preparing for that," Levine Cava told the Miami Herald.
She said families have very detailed questions about where exactly teams are searching in the pile since most of them know the location of their loved ones' apartments.
"What can I say? It's a terrible, terrible situation, one in which they're coming through it with our support," she added.
Several engineering experts told the Herald that based on publicly available evidence it seemed likely the collapse began at the pool deck before the rest of the building pancaked.
Levine Cava said there's a FEMA booth set up at the family assistance center to help families apply for all kinds of financial assistance, including relocation costs, costs related to staying in Miami for families waiting for news and funeral expenses.
Search and rescue crews also have been brought in from around the state, country and world, including from Israel. Many of the missing residents are members of Surfside's Jewish community.
Burkett spoke to media Sunday afternoon, alongside Miami Mayor Francis Suarez and Steve Stow, the vice president of the Miami Heat Charitable Fund.
Orlando Bravo, a Puerto Rican billionaire and co-founder of a private equity investment firm announced he would be joining in the local charities to contribute to SupportSurfside.org, which was created by the Miami Heat and Miami Heat Charitable Fund, The Miami Foundation, The Coral Gables Community Foundation, The Key Biscayne Community Foundation and other partners.
Burkett commended the fund for bringing dollars for relocation assistance and other things that don't fall in the confines of FEMA funding.
"This funding is much more flexible," Burkett said.
He said he's spoken to residents who live in the sister building to Champlain Tower South Condo, which he said "probably had the same contractor, probably the same materials." Those residents will be able to get help staying elsewhere temporarily, he said.
"We have residents asking me if their building was safe," he said. "I don't have answers for them. I think those fears are justified."
He said while the funding is welcome, donations are becoming less needed when it comes to the rescue mission.
"We are drowning in resources," he said. "We don't have a resource problem, we have a luck problem. We need better weather and fewer fires."
In a live interview with West Palm Beach station WPTV Sunday morning, Jimmy Patronis, Florida's chief financial officer and state fire marshal, said authorities were continuing to battle fires at the site of the collapse, which remains unstable. Items like lithium batteries or foam mattresses at the scene could be contributing to the problem.
"Sunday is an appropriate day for prayer," he said, adding authorities remain hopeful in the rescue mission as they work 12-hour shifts.
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