The operations at the collapsed Surfside, Florida condo complex have switched from rescue to recovery efforts, essentially ending hope of finding any additional survivors after more than two weeks, NBC News reports.
So far, 54 people have been confirmed killed in the disaster, which happened at 1:30 a.m. local time on June 24th. The recovery of 18 bodies so far on Wednesday make it the single largest daily increase in the number of remains recovered. Eighty-six people still remain unaccounted for. Thirty-three of the dead have been identified and their families notified.
Officials conducted a controlled demolition of the remaining standing structure Sunday night in hopes that it would stabilize the site so the standing tower wouldn’t collapse on the existing rubble pile. They had also hoped that the demo would allow rescuers to find new paths to find survivors. However, officials said they were “not seeing anything positive” in the day after the move.