After another day without finding survivors, the rescue enters a delicate phase.

Florida officials said connected Saturday that they were rushing to demolish the portion of Champlain Towers South that is inactive lasting due to the fact that of worries that the partially collapsed operation would not withstand the almighty winds of an approaching tropical storm.

“It’s structurally unsound,” Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida said of the gathering during a greeting quality briefing.

Officials said preparations for the demolition could beryllium completed wrong astir 36 hours, allowing for the gathering to beryllium brought down earlier Tropical Storm Elsa is expected to scope South Florida.

Demolition could statesman arsenic aboriginal arsenic Sunday, according to Mayor Charles W. Burkett of Surfside.

Mr. DeSantis acknowledged the added hardship the demolition would make for families who had fled the collapse, leaving down astir of their possessions. But helium said the information the gathering posed near nary different option.

“At the extremity of the day, that gathering is excessively unsafe to fto radical spell backmost in,” the politician said. “I cognize there’s a batch of radical who were capable to get out, fortunately, who person things there. We’re precise delicate to that. But I don’t deliberation that there’s immoderate mode you could fto idiosyncratic spell backmost up into that gathering fixed the signifier that it’s successful now.”

Mr. DeSantis said that portion Surfside was not expected to carnivore the brunt of the storm, the metropolis could inactive acquisition beardown winds and dense rain. Elsa was downgraded to a tropical tempest from a Category 1 hurricane arsenic it battered Caribbean islands. It could scope Florida arsenic aboriginal arsenic Monday, causing flooding and imaginable tornadoes.

Officials said a Maryland-based contractor, Controlled Demolition Inc., would usage explosives to bring the remainder of the gathering down, and that the demolition would origin the “most minimal interruption” of hunt and rescue enactment astatine the site.

Emergency responders are continuing to enactment connected Saturday, according to the Miami-Dade occurrence chief, Alan Cominsky, but person been incapable to grow operations to immoderate further parts of the building.

Search-and-rescue unit connected apical of the rubble of the Champlain Towers South condo gathering successful Surfside, Fla., connected Friday.Credit...Mark Humphrey/Associated Press

Following different painstaking, unsafe and yet fruitless time successful the hunt for survivors, the rescue effort astatine the tract of the Champlain Towers South illness appeared to beryllium entering a delicate caller phase, arsenic officials and rescuers continued to softly admit the anticipation that nary much victims would beryllium recovered alive, though they refused to wantonness each hope.

No survivors person been recovered since the time of the catastrophe successful Surfside, Fla., much than a week ago, and though federal, authorities and section officials said they remained committed to the rescue effort, determination was nary motion of letup successful the bonzer challenges astatine the tract of the condominium collapse.

Rescue workers person recovered it highly hard to passageway done the layers of flattened factual without putting radical successful danger, amid rubble that is truthful unstable that enactment was suspended for astatine slightest 12 hours connected Thursday due to the fact that of fears that it could illness further. And the thunderstorms that person plagued the ngo could soon worsen with the attack of Hurricane Elsa, which hammered the eastbound Caribbean connected Friday and could impact parts of Florida aboriginal adjacent week, forecasters said.

Officials said connected Saturday that the uncollapsed information of the gathering was excessively unsound to withstand a tropical storm, and that they were accelerating plans to demolish it earlier the tempest arrives. But they said the demolition would lone minimally disrupt rescue work.

After gathering connected Thursday with families of the missing, President Biden said: “They cognize that the chances are, arsenic each time goes by, diminished slightly.”

The agencies progressive successful the rescue — including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Florida Division of Emergency Management and Miami-Dade Fire Rescue — person mostly declined to reply questions astir erstwhile the hunt mightiness displacement to a betterment mission. Such a designation could unlock caller and perchance faster ways of tunneling done the factual to find remains, including the usage of heavier machinery, and could besides assistance families determination guardant successful the grieving process.

On Friday, the bodies of six much victims were found, including that of the 7-year-old girl of a Miami firefighter. Police officers, firefighters and exigency aesculapian workers paused the hunt to wage their respects and flank her removal from the scene. The constabulary did not place the girl.

The constabulary besides confirmed the deaths of Bonnie Epstein, 56, and the joined mates Maria Obias-Bonnefoy, 69, and Claudio Bonnefoy, 85.

Two of the victims recovered connected Friday nighttime were announced connected Saturday, bringing the full to 24. As galore arsenic 124 radical are inactive unaccounted for, a fig that was revised down connected Friday aft officials determined that immoderate radical included successful earlier tallies had been located.

Publicly, rescuers and exigency aesculapian workers refused to wantonness hope. People person survived for galore days aft gathering collapses elsewhere, including aft earthquakes successful Haiti and Mexico. Additional municipality search-and-rescue teams, activated by FEMA this week, person headed down to Surfside to assistance with the effort and with hurricane preparations.

“I’m not going present close present with the hopes of uncovering victims — we’re going down determination with the extremity of uncovering survivors,” Ken Pagurek, the person of Pennsylvania Task Force 1, said arsenic helium drove down to Florida connected Thursday with much than 70 engineers, doctors, logistics experts and different specialists. “I inactive deliberation there’s a slim chance. A slim accidental is amended than nary chance.”

Elsa moving done the Caribbean connected Tuesday, erstwhile it was inactive classified arsenic a hurricane.Credit...NOAA, via Associated Press

Tropical Storm Elsa is continuing connected a way crossed the Caribbean, and whitethorn interruption northward toward Florida, further complicating hunt and rescue efforts astatine the Champlain Towers South condominium building.

Rescuers warned that the dense rainfall and gusting winds it could bring to South Florida arsenic soon arsenic Sunday evening could hinder the enactment astatine the partially collapsed building. Gov. Ron DeSantis announced connected Saturday that the portion of the gathering that was inactive lasting could not withstand the tempest and that a contractor would demolish it earlier the tempest arrived.

At a quality league connected Friday, section leaders pledged to redouble rescue efforts successful spite of the predicted weather. Thunderstorms and rainfall slowed the enactment astatine the tract during the week, and nary survivors were found.

“We’re not conscionable moving an exigency response, arsenic you tin see,” Mayor Daniella Levine Cava of Miami-Dade County said connected Friday. “We’re besides preparing our full assemblage for a imaginable tempest astatine the aforesaid time.”

The storm, which had been a Category 1 hurricane, weakened somewhat overnight Friday to Saturday, with its halfway passing southbound of the Dominican Republic. But it continued to battalion near-hurricane winds arsenic it tracked west-northwest toward Haiti, Jamaica and Cuba.

Forecasters astatine the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration expected the tempest to gradually crook northward, with storm-force winds reaching South Florida aboriginal Monday and the storm’s halfway crossing the Florida Keys and heading up the state’s westbound seashore connected Tuesday.

Crestview Towers successful North Miami Beach, Fla., aft it was ordered to adjacent and evacuate its residents connected Friday.Credit...Giulia Heyward/The New York Times

NORTH MIAMI BEACH, Fla. — A 10-story condominium analyzable successful North Miami Beach was ordered to adjacent and evacuate its residents connected Friday aft the gathering submitted a recertification report, based connected a January inspection, that documented “unsafe structural and electrical conditions.”

The 156-unit building, Crestview Towers, was built successful 1972 and is astir a seven-mile thrust from the illness tract successful Surfside. The condominium submitted the study arsenic portion of an audit recommended by the bureau of Mayor Daniella Levine Cava of Miami-Dade County.

“In an abundance of caution, the metropolis ordered the gathering closed instantly and the residents evacuated for their protection, portion a afloat structural appraisal is conducted and adjacent steps are determined,” Arthur H. Sorey, the North Miami Beach metropolis manager, said successful a statement. “Nothing is much important than the information and lives of our residents, and we volition not remainder until we guarantee this gathering is 100 percent safe.”

The recertification report, which the metropolis received connected Friday, documented cracks and corrosion successful the building’s structure, and noted that repairs would beryllium required to enactment up the building’s factual frame.

In the building’s parking lot, Chief Richard Rand of the North Miami Beach Police told dozens of residents that officers would beryllium delivering boxes of pizza to them and would not summons cars near overnight.

“As you each know, this gathering has go unsafe,” Chief Rand said. “The past happening I privation to bash is request to find retired that different gathering collapsed, and aggregate radical are dead.”

The evacuation of Crestview Towers came arsenic Miami-Dade County is re-evaluating the information of older structures. Ms. Levine Cava announced a 30-day audit of each oceanfront buildings that are astatine 40 oregon much years older and are nether the county’s jurisdiction, meaning that they are not located wrong cities similar Miami oregon Surfside, wherever the Champlain Towers South fell.

Though it is extracurricular the county’s jurisdiction, North Miami Beach undertook the gathering audit recommended by Ms. Levine Cava’s office, the politician said. A announcement posted connected North Miami Beach’s website said a peculiar City Council gathering has been called for Saturday evening astatine 6 p.m. to sermon the evacuation.

Residents hurried to permission the gathering connected Friday, scrambling to battalion necessities and trying to coordinate lodging for the night. In the parking lot, children played blissfully connected tablets portion their parents talked rapidly connected the phone, successful English oregon Spanish.

“I had picked up my lad from summertime campy erstwhile I saw each the cops here,” Harold J. Dauphin, 46, said. “I thought determination had been a shooting — my lone thought was ‘Where americium I going to go?’ I person nary idea.”

Search and rescue crews exiting the tract of the Champlain Towers South illness successful Surfside, Fla., connected Monday.Credit...Scott McIntyre for The New York Times

Six exigency aesculapian workers helping with rescue efforts astatine the tract of a collapsed condo successful Surfside, Fla., person tested affirmative for the coronavirus, Alan R. Cominsky, the main of Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, said astatine a quality league connected Saturday.

The workers, who were each portion of the aforesaid task force, were nary longer astatine the site, Chief Cominsky said, adding that interaction tracing had been performed and that 424 members of different Florida task unit teams responding to the tract had been tested.

Chief Cominsky did not code the conditions of the six workers successful his comments. It was unclear whether they had been vaccinated.

The main told The Miami Herald connected Friday that the six exigency aesculapian workers were firefighters from Florida, but that they were not from Miami-Dade.

“We bash person our aesculapian procedures successful place,” helium told the newspaper. “Unfortunately, this is different challenge, but thing we’ve been dealing with for implicit the past year.”

Average regular reports of caller cases successful Florida person risen by 55 percent successful the past 2 weeks, according to a New York Times database. Across the state, 65 percent of residents 18 and older person received astatine slightest 1 dose of a coronavirus vaccine, and 56 percent are afloat vaccinated.

At the quality league connected Saturday, Chief Cominsky said the rescue effort would proceed with teams from Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey and Indiana successful summation to those from Florida.

Miami-Dade occurrence rescue officers lasting by exigency trucks arsenic hunt and rescue teams hunt the rubble of the Champlain Towers South condo gathering successful Surfside, Fla., connected Friday.Credit...Giorgio Viera/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

California sent 9 exigency specialists to assistance hunt the rubble of the collapsed condo operation successful Surfside connected Friday, astir a week aft Florida authorities turned down an connection of assistance from the state.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s deployment of 5 municipality search-and-rescue unit members and 4 structural specialists from occurrence departments successful Orange County, Sacramento, San Diego and Oakland came arsenic Hurricane Elsa threatened Florida and arsenic the decease toll successful Surfside mounted. At slightest 24 radical person been confirmed dormant and arsenic galore arsenic 124 radical stay unaccounted for successful the collapse.

Last weekend, successful the aboriginal days of the search, the California Office of Emergency Services offered assistance, including state-of-the-art DNA investigation to assistance rescuers place remains recovered successful the rubble. The connection was turned down by Florida officials connected Monday, arsenic California restricted state-funded question to Florida and 4 different states successful effect to anti-L.G.B.T.Q. authorities successful those places.

Officials successful Florida’s Division of Emergency Management said the refusal was apolitical and done astatine the behest of section exigency authorities successful Miami-Dade County. “They had plentifulness of resources,” said Samantha Bequer, spokeswoman for the Florida emergency-management division, adding the authorities authorities didn’t “want to overwhelm them.”

Florida has accepted assistance successful the catastrophe effort from immoderate of the world’s astir skilled and experienced search-and-rescue crews, including from Israel and Mexico. But authorities officials person besides turned distant immoderate offers of aid, saying they were wary of complicating the delicate hunt for survivors by inundating the unstable hunt tract with excessively galore workers and excessively overmuch equipment.

The archetypal California connection would person brought to carnivore exertion that has been utilized successful caller years to place remains of victims from that state’s catastrophic disasters, including those who died successful the 2018 wildfire successful Paradise, Calif. Experts accidental the effort to wide the tract and place remains may instrumentality months, based connected akin efforts astatine collapsed buildings. Identifying bodies with DNA provided by household members takes astir 90 minutes, but further confirmation of the remains by the aesculapian examiner tin instrumentality a time oregon longer.

Brian Ferguson, a spokesperson for the California Office of Emergency Services, said Florida emergency-management officials archetypal contacted California requesting imaginable assistance. California officials determined what “specialized victim-identification capabilities” would beryllium disposable for usage and offered to stock its expertise and instrumentality past weekend, helium said.

However, helium said, exigency managers successful Florida aboriginal informed California that they had received an outpouring of enactment and nary longer needed assistance. By Friday, that had changed, arsenic the politician of Miami-Dade County ordered the demolition of the information of Champlain Towers South that is inactive lasting and the adjacent metropolis of North Miami Beach undertook a gathering audit.

At slightest 4 of the California-based workers are specialists trained to measure buildings aft disasters to find whether it is harmless to run successful them.

Neighbors, friends and relatives person turned a obstruction adjacent the collapsed Champlain Towers South condominium successful Surfside, Fla., into a memorial for the dormant and missing. Victoria Cavero of Surfside added immoderate flowers to the memorial connected Thursday.Credit...Scott McIntyre for The New York Times

Every time for the past week, Maria Noble has carried flowers 2 blocks from her location to the Surfside Tennis Center, wherever the achromatic chain-link obstruction has been transformed into a makeshift memorial to victims of the Champlain Towers South disaster.

Ms. Noble, 71, did not cognize immoderate residents of the collapsed condominium personally. But she has lived successful the vicinity for much than 30 years.

“So galore radical don’t cognize Surfside,” Ms. Noble said connected Friday aft cautiously arranging 3 bouquets of achromatic flowers — 2 hanging from the obstruction and 1 successful a vase astatine its base. “It’s a friendly, affable metropolis and it’s excessively atrocious that what happened present is the mode the satellite knows Surfside.”

Along with different neighbors and household members, Ms. Noble has helped grow the memorial from a smattering of insubstantial fliers with photos of missing radical and a tiny enactment of flowers beneath them into a immense array of bouquets affixed to the fence, interspersed with messages and prayers for the victims and their families.

Different radical are remembered successful antithetic sections of the memorial. Ms. Noble has contributed flowers to galore of them.

“One time I’m coming for one, aboriginal I spell to different group, different group,” Ms. Noble said, motioning down the magnitude of the fence.

On Friday morning, she brought flowers, a rosary and a votive candle with a lantern to support the candle from the expected rain. She laic them by a photograph of Leidy Luna Villalba, a 23-year-old pistillate who had arrived successful Miami from Paraguay connected June 23 to enactment arsenic a nanny for the archetypal woman of Paraguay’s family. The household and Ms. Villalba were sleeping astatine the condo erstwhile it collapsed, and are listed arsenic missing.

“You ideate she was alone, possibly with household coming,” said Ms. Noble, who immigrated to the United States from Paraguay herself successful 1982.

Ms. Villalba was studying to go a nurse, she added. “You ideate her coming for much success, and that happened,” she said, nodding to the memorial.

Stacie Fang, 54, was the archetypal unfortunate identified successful the condo collapse. She was the parent of Jonah Handler, a 15-year-old lad who was pulled live from the rubble successful a dramatic rescue arsenic helium begged rescuers, “Please don’t permission me.”

Antonio Lozano, 83, and Gladys Lozano, 79, were confirmed dormant by Mr. Lozano’s nephew, Phil Ferro, the main meteorologist connected WSVN Channel 7 successful Miami. Mr. Ferro wrote connected Instagram: “They were specified beauteous people. May they remainder successful peace.”

Luis Andres Bermudez, 26, lived with his mother, Ana Ortiz, 46, and stepfather, Frank Kleiman, 55. Mr. Bermudez’s begetter confirmed his son’s decease connected social media, penning successful Spanish: “My Luiyo. You gave maine everything … I volition miss you each of my life. We’ll spot each different soon. I volition ne'er permission you alone.”

Manuel LaFont, 54, was a businessman who worked with Latin American companies. His erstwhile wife, Adriana LaFont, described him arsenic “the champion dad.” Mr. LaFont’s son, 10, and daughter, 13, were with Ms. LaFont erstwhile the gathering collapsed.

Leon Oliwkowicz, 80, and Cristina Beatriz Elvira, 74, were from Venezuela and had precocious moved to Surfside, according to Chabadinfo.com, which said they were progressive successful the Orthodox Jewish assemblage successful greater Chicago, wherever 1 of their daughters lives.

Marcus Joseph Guara, 52, lived with his wife, Anaely Rodriguez, 42, and their 2 daughters, Lucia Guara, 10, and Emma Guara, 4. Mr. Guara was remembered arsenic a benignant and generous man, a godfather to twins and a instrumentality of hard stone music.

Hilda Noriega, 92, was a longtime nonmigratory of Champlain Towers South who enjoyed traveling and whose household described her “unconditional love.” Hours earlier the collapse, she attended a solemnisation with relatives.

Michael David Altman, 50, came from Costa Rica to the United States arsenic a child, and was an avid racquetball subordinate arsenic a youth. “He was a lukewarm man. He conquered a batch of obstacles successful his life, and ever came retired connected top,” his son, Nicholas, told The Miami Herald.

Andreas Giannitsopoulos, 21, was successful South Florida visiting Mr. LaFont, a adjacent person of his father’s. He was studying economics astatine Vanderbilt University and had been a decathlon jock astatine his precocious school. An representation of him is connected a mural extracurricular the school’s diversion facility.

Also killed successful the illness was Magaly Elena Delgado, 80.

— The New York Times

Engineers said that damaged columns astatine the illness tract appeared to person little alloy reinforcement than what the plan drawings called for.Credit...Jason Pizzo

Engineers who person visited the country oregon examined photos of the wreckage of the Champlain Towers South condominium analyzable person been struck by a imaginable flaw successful its construction: Critical places adjacent the basal of the gathering appeared to usage little alloy reinforcement than called for successful the project’s archetypal plan drawings.

The reflection is the archetypal item to look pointing to a imaginable occupation successful the prime of operation of the 13-story condo operation successful Surfside, Fla.

Allyn E. Kilsheimer, a forensic engineering adept hired by the municipality of Surfside to analyse the collapse, said the probe was inactive successful its aboriginal stages. But helium confirmed determination were signs that the magnitude of alloy utilized to link factual slabs beneath a parking platform to the building’s vertical columns mightiness beryllium little than what the project’s archetypal plans specified.

“The bars mightiness not beryllium arranged similar the archetypal drawings telephone for,” Mr. Kilsheimer said successful an interview. He said helium would request to inspect the rubble much intimately to find whether successful information the slab-to-column connections contained little alloy than expected.

The condo tower’s 1979 plan drawings, provided by the municipality of Surfside and reviewed by structural engineers and The New York Times, bespeak that the vertical columns successful galore parts of the gathering were expected to supply a captious structural transportation to horizontal slabs, embedded with 8 rods of reinforcing alloy — 4 successful 1 direction, 4 successful the different — adjacent the tops of the slabs. But the reinforcing rods successful the parking area, near exposed successful galore places aft the parking platform slab slammed down to the little level, look to beryllium less successful number.

The probe of the illness could instrumentality months, truthful preliminary observations and findings could change. Some engineers said the imaginable shortfall successful alloy rebar successful the comparatively tiny portion of the gathering they had examined should beryllium seen not arsenic a origin of the collapse, but it could perchance person been 1 of respective factors that allowed immoderate initiated the occupation to accelerate into a catastrophic failure.