WATCH: Remains of Collapsed Florida Condo Demolished Overnight

The remainder of the partially collapsed apartment building in Surfside, Florida was demolished overnight due to safety concerns, as a tropical storm approaches the state.

The demolition occurred around 10:30 pm E.T. on Sunday — the Fourth of July — with the use of controlled explosives.

“Brining the building down in a controlled manner is critical to expanding our scope of search as you know, in the pile, and allowing us to search the area closest to the building, which has currently not been accessible to the teams given the great risk to our first responders, due to the instability of the building,” said Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava (D).

The storm, named Tropical Storm Elsa, is set to hit Surfside as early as Monday afternoon and was expected to cause the remainder of the building to collapse had it not been demolished.

The demolition brought down 55 of the building’s 136 units, allowing crew members to immediately begin searching through the roughly 16 feet of concrete at the site.

At least 24 people were killed in the collapse, including children, while 121 people are still unaccounted for 12 days after the building initially fell.

It appears as though the approaching storm may have been a blessing in disguise for us in that it initiated the demolition discussion,” Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said Sunday night. “We want to make sure that we control which way the building falls and not a hurricane, so all of this together I think ended up being a good thing.”

Watch above, via MSNBC.