The death toll has risen to 9 as a result of the collapsed Florida tower

The death toll from the collapse of a 12-story apartment tower in northern Miami rose to nine on Sunday as search and rescue teams continued to pick up debris in hopes of surviving on the fourth day.

Surfside mayor Charles Burkett promised authorities that full attention was focused on rescue operations, but that they needed more luck. “We’re not short of resources,” Burkett said. “We don’t have a resource problem, we’ve had a luck problem. We need to start being more lucky right now.”

Burket said search and rescue teams have made “significant” progress overnight. Officials said the fire was burning inside the debris hindering search efforts it was shut down around noon on Saturday.

The rescue effort was bolstered by Israeli and Mexican groups. A trench 125 meters long, 20 meters wide and 40 meters deep was built at the site at night to allow rescuers to find more body and human remains.

The collapse of the Champlain Towers South building on Thursday found 156 people and raised concerns about the safety of other apartment buildings, most notably the sister of the nearby Champlain Towers North building. Burkett said Saturday that he had requested an emergency inspection of the building.

County officials have said they will conduct security inspections of the old buildings. Daniella Levine Cava, the mayor of Miami-Dade County, said there will be “deep immersion” over the next 30 days to evaluate buildings that are 40 years old or older.

That review, however, would not include buildings in cities with their powers, Levine Cava told CBS News.

The New York Times reported on Saturday that an engineering consultant had found disturbing evidence of “significant structural damage” in the 2018 Champlain Towers South that collapsed. Burkett said Sunday that city authorities will look “very, very, very broadly” at the 2018 building engineering report, as well as look at other documents.

“We are now making a deep immersion in documentation, in communications with that particular building over the years and in other buildings for that, but also in the sister building in particular,” he said.

But he confirmed that the rescue operation will be the top priority. “Buildings aren’t falling apart in America,” Burkett told ABC News. “Obviously, there was something very, very wrong with this building, and we have to get there in the end, but not today, not tomorrow, and not for long, because our first priority and our only priority is to attract neighbors out of that rubbish.”

Levine Cava said anyone living in the sister block she wanted to evacuate would be “supportive” and said the building inspector would be sent to “make a more detailed examination of the structure of that building,” finding no reason to inspect the building initially. concern.

Burket said the city will provide any resources to those residents who wanted to relocate.

Earlier in the week, U.S. President Joe Biden promised federal assistance to complete state and local response efforts, and declared a state of emergency. Emergency actions allow the Federal Emergency Management Agency of the Department of Homeland Security to coordinate “all efforts to resolve disasters,” a White House statement said Friday.