The death toll has risen to 9 since the Florida tower block collapsed

The death toll from the collapse of a 12-story apartment tower north of Miami went to nine on Sunday as search and rescue teams continued to flee through the rubble for a fourth day in hopes of finding survivors. .

Charles Burkett, mayor of the city of Surfside, promised residents that authorities were entirely focused on rescue operations, but they needed more luck. “We’re not poor in resources,” Burkett said. “We don’t have a resource problem, we have a luck problem. We just need to start having a little more luck now.”

Burkett said search and rescue teams had made “substantial” progress overnight. Officials said a fire was burning in the rubble and hindering research efforts it was turned off around noon on Saturday.

Rescue efforts have been reinforced by teams from Israel and Mexico. A 125-meter-long, 20-meter-wide and 40-foot-deep trench was built on the site overnight, allowing rescuers to find more bodies and human remains.

The collapse of the Champlain Towers South building on Thursday left 156 people unknown, and fueled anxiety over the safety of other apartment buildings, particularly the nearby sister building Champlain Towers North. Burkett said Saturday he had sought an emergency inspection of that building.

County officials said they would do thorough security checks on the old buildings. Daniella Levine Cava, mayor of the Miami-Dade county, said there will be a “deep dive” over the next 30 days to assess buildings approaching 40 years of age or older.

This magazine, however, would not include buildings in cities that have their own power, Levine Cava said, speaking on CBS News.

The New York Times on Saturday said an engineering consultant found alarming evidence of “major structural damage” to the collapse of Champlain Towers South in 2018. Burkett said Sunday that city authorities are looking for “a lot,” very, very completely ”to the 2018 engineering report on the building, as well as the review of other documents.

“We are now immersing ourselves really deeply in the documentation, in the communications that had been had over the years with that particular building, and the other buildings for that, but also specifically the sister building,” he said.

But he reiterated that the rescue operation would be the first priority. “Palaces don’t fall on America,” Burkett told ABC News. “There was certainly something very, very wrong in this building, and we needed to get to the bottom of it, but not today, not tomorrow and not for a long time, because our first priority and our only priority is to pull our residents outside this macagna “.

Levine Cava said she would be “favorable” to all those living in the sister block who wanted to evacuate and said building inspectors were sent to do “a more detailed review of the structure of this building.” “After an initial inspection of the building it found no cause for concern.

Burkett said the city provides resources to any of those residents who want to relocate.

Earlier this week, U.S. President Joe Biden ordered federal assistance to complement state and local response efforts, and declared a state of emergency. The emergency action authorizes the Federal Emergency Management Agency of the Department of Homeland Security to coordinate “all disaster relief efforts,” a White House statement said Friday.