Engineers who inspected the high-rise South Florida apartment block that partly collapsed last Thursday leaving scores of people dead or trapped under the rubble warned in 2018 of a “major error” in the construction’s original design.

The report — released late on Friday night by officials in Surfside, north of Miami Beach — notes the building’s reinforced concrete slab was not sloped to drain water.

“Though some of this damage is minor, most of the concrete deterioration needs to be repaired in a timely fashion,” consultant Frank Morabito wrote in his report. 

City officials released the report as investigators struggle to offer a definitive explanation of a collapse that still has 159 people unaccounted for.

Mr Morabito said the building’s original design, one in which waterproofing was laid flat and not sloped to allow water to run off, was a “major error”. 

He wrote that “failure to replace the waterproofing in the near future will cause the extent of the concrete deterioration to expand exponentially”.

Replacing the waterproofing would cause a major disturbance to residents and prove to be “extremely expensive”, he said at the time.

Mr Morabito also pointed out the “abundant” cracking and crumbling that was apparent in the walls, columns and beams of the building’s underground car park.

“Though some of this damage is minor, most of the concrete deterioration needs to be repaired in a timely fashion,” he wrote.

While he did not indicate the building was at risk of collapsing, the consultant noted that “maintaining the structural integrity” of the 136 units meant completing the repairs.

Officials delivered a sombre update on the search-and-rescue efforts as night descended on Friday. No new survivors have been discovered.

“We have not found anyone else in today’s search,” said Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava.

“But through the night we will continue and, God willing, there will be some good news later tonight or in the morning.”

The death toll rose to four earlier in the day. But Ms Cava said she still has hope. Rescue teams think there could still be survivors in pockets of the rubble where residents might be trapped.

“They see opportunities, they see fissures that they could go in, they see places that they could break through,” she said. “And as long as they can do that, and as long as they have encouraging signs like the knocking sound that they’ve heard, then we will continue.”

The search for survivors has been painstaking and precarious: Every moved piece of debris could cause another to shift. Workers are wary of dousing still-flaring fires with too much water, fearful added weight might send wreckage tumbling down on someone trapped below.

“We’re dealing not only with the exposed elements of the structure itself, but voids and the continuous threats of collapse,” said Obed Frometa, a lieutenant on the Miami-Dade search-and-rescue team who helped plan the effort.

Piece by piece, layer by layer, that effort is continuing, with hundreds of emergency workers scouring the debris for any signs of life.

At least 35 of the most accessible victims have already been rescued and taken to hospital. Four have been confirmed dead and 159 people remained unaccounted for. Now crews are focused on probing deeper into the heaps of concrete and metal in hope of finding anyone trapped farther down. 

As rescue efforts continued, a memorial to the dead and missing appeared nearby. The night after Florida native Leo Soto learned his high-school friend Nicky Langesfeld was among those missing, he couldn’t sleep.

At 4am, he had an idea: His community needed a space to honour the victims.

By morning, he had called every florist in his midtown neighbourhood, buying bouquets and collecting donated flowers. He printed photos he could find on Twitter and one of Ms Langesfeld with her fiance, Luis Sadovnic, both of whom had been on the eighth floor.

“They were just getting ready to start their lives and begin a family, live life and grow old, and it looks like they may not have that opportunity,” he said, holding back tears.

At tennis courts in Collins Avenue across from the collapsed building, courts that later became a staging site for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Mr Soto and other volunteers hung the pictures, lit candles and propped flowers against a chain-link fence — creating an impromptu memorial yards from the continuing rescue effort.

As the day wore on, onlookers stopped to read the names. One woman copied each name down to add to her prayers.

“That was the purpose of this,” Mr Soto said. “You never know when that one little prayer can be the one that makes the miracle.”

Debra Golan decided to light her Shabbat candles at 7.40pm instead of the traditional 7.58pm when the sun sets.

Her close friend Estelle Hedaya is missing after the condominium collapse, she said. Now her family and others across Florida, New York and New Jersey are lighting candles 18 minutes early in honour of those still missing.

“Eighteen symbolises life in Judaism and we want to save all those lives,” Ms Golan said. “It’s the little things we do,” she said, to preserve hope.

With Jewish community members among the many unaccounted for in the high-rise’s sudden destruction, Friday evening observances of Shabbat — a religious day of rest where many abstain from work and electronics — took a mournful turn.

Some people flew in from outside the state to support families of the missing, while a barbecue restaurant near a hard-hit synagogue began offering free Shabbat meals.

While identities of the victims are still emerging, the Shul — one of several synagogues close to the ruined building — has released a list of 10 of its members missing in the collapse.

The synagogue said donations of essential items for devastated families have been pouring in but added that “the need will be great and ongoing”.

A GoFundMe set up after the disaster had already raised more than $122,000 (€100,000).

Yankie Andrusier, the son-in-law of the Shul’s Rabbi Sholom Lipskar, told the Miami Herald that he is among Orthodox volunteers who are working “round-the-clock” despite Shabbat’s mandate of rest while trying their best to avoid technology.

“This is like a mini 9/11 for us,” he said. “Except for the fact that it wasn’t an act of terrorists — it was an act of God.” 

© Washington Post

© Washington Post