Charles Burkett, the mayor of Surfside, Florida, offered some concerned comments about the sister building to the the Champlain Towers South Condominium after its catastrophic collapse.
Burkett gave an interview to ABC’s Jon Karl on Sunday to talk about the ongoing efforts to clear out the rubble and search for survivors among the 156 people who remain unaccounted for. As he was asked what caused the apartment tower’s collapse, Burkett called the situation a “third world phenomenon” as he said “buildings don’t fall down in America.”
“There was something obviously very, very wrong at this building, and we need to get to the bottom of it,” Burkett said. “Not today, not tomorrow, and not for a long time, because our first priority and our only priority is to pull our residents out of that rubble and reunite them with their family.”
Burkett’s comments come after the resurfacing of a structural study on Champlain Towers South Condominium back in 2018, which detected several signs of the building’s deterioration, even without indications of an imminent collapse.
Karl continued the interview by noting that Burkett has raised concerns about Champlain Towers North, which was made with the same contractor, design and materials as its sister building. When asked if there should be a “mandatory evacuation,” Burkett said he has been speaking with Florida officials about the North tower since those concerns have been
“They agreed that we needed to do something and quick,” Burkett said. This prompted him to go over the state’s efforts to work with emergency services to set up alternative housing available “for any resident that really doesn’t want to be in that building pending the investigation.”
Buckett went on by speaking of initial investigations into the building, but he added “I don’t know if I’d be comfortable staying in that building until I knew for sure that they had done a comprehensive top-to-bottom study on what’s going on with the systems in that building.”
Hours after Buckett’s interview, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said in a press conference the death toll has risen to nine.
Watch above, via ABC.