Surfside building collapse update

Today, Miami-Dade County released the following update on the Surfside building collapse response and recovery:

Search and Recovery

As of today, July 17, 95 victims have been identified and 95 families have been notified. 241 people are accounted for; 97 missing persons reports were opened with the Miami-Dade Police Department.

At this step in the recovery process it has become increasingly difficult to identify victims, and we are relying heavily on the work of the medical examiner’s office and the scientific, technical process of identifying human remains. This work becomes more difficult with the passage of time although our teams are working as hard and as fast as they can.

Out of respect for the families who are still waiting and to ensure we are reporting the most accurate possible numbers, we will only be reporting the number of victims who have been identified.