After a roughly 15-hour pause on search and rescue operations at the collapsed Surfside, Florida, condo, work to recover remains and search for survivors has resumed after President Joe Biden left Thursday.
The work paused shortly after 2 a.m. ET Thursday, hours before the president's visit, and resumed in the afternoon shortly after the president left, according to local reports, including Newsmax's on-site correspondent.
Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said the search has resumed "full power," according to South Florida's NBC 6.
While there, Biden met with workers and families of victims and those missing, and pointed to global warming as a reason the building crumbled in potentially the deadliest structure collapse in American history.
"Interesting to me, I didn't raise it, but how many of the survivors and how many of the families talked about the impact of global warming," Biden told reporters at a news conference away from the collapse site.
"How much it — they didn't know exactly — they talked about sea levels rising and about how, and, and, the combination of that and the concern about incoming storms, incoming tropical storms. And, so, but I don't think at this point there is any definitive judgment as to why it collapsed and what can be done to prevent it from happening and what other buildings may have to be inspected to determine if they have the same problem."
Before the work pause, there were 18 confirmed fatalities, including children 10 and 4 years old, and an estimated 145 people still missing after the building collapsed at 1:27 a.m. ET last Thursday, according to eyewitnesses to NBC 6.
The NBC witnesses took video of water pouring from the second floor to the ground floor and the basement garage just minutes before the collapse. They also warned residents on the balcony as the building was shaking to get out.
There was talk that the pause for search and rescue was to consider knocking down the remaining structure to make conditions safer for workers, but that action was not taken as rescue resumed after Biden left.