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Two weeks after the collapse of a Florida condominium, officials announced Wednesday that they were shifting from rescue to recovery as there was "no chance of life" being found.
Miami-Dade Assistant Fire Chief Raide Jadallah told families of the people who had remained unaccounted for that rescue dogs and listening devices would be removed but that workers would continue to search for human remains.
No survivors have been found since the earliest hours after half of the building inexplicably tumbled to the ground early on June 24. The other half of the building was imploded last Sunday, giving searchers new pathways to look for victims and recover bodies they had previously been unable to access for fear the structure would topple on them.
Miami-Dade Assistant Fire Chief Raide Jadallah said 32 of the victims had been identified.
The search crews in South Florida were expected to get a break from hazardous weather conditions Wednesday as Tropical Storm Elsa tracked up the western shores of Florida, away from the condo collapse in the Surfside community on the eastern coast of the state.
The search had to be halted for about two hours Tuesday due to lightning and high wind gusts from the storm.
Workers are continuing to go through the pile of rubble, a process officials called delayering, as they search for people and any evidence to help explain why the 12-story building partially collapsed without warning.
Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Chief Alan Cominsky said Tuesday that 112 metric tons of debris had been removed from the site. Police are cataloguing and storing the material in a secure location in order to aid with their ongoing investigation into what happened.
Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett has pledged that the search operation will go on "until everybody is pulled out of that site."
He praised the search crews for their work amid dangerous conditions.
"They truly have performed way above and beyond the call of duty," Burkett told reporters.
This report includes information from the Associated Press and Reuters.