51 people unaccounted for after Florida condo collapse

Approximately 55 units at the Champlain Towers South were impacted in Thursday morning’s catastrophic collapse in Surfside, Florida.

According to a series of tweets from Miami-Dade Fire and Rescue, the impacted units were in the northwest corridor of the building.

MDFR said they responded to reports of a building collapse at 1:30 a.m. ET and were able to rescue 35 people, 10 of whom were treated on-site. Two were transported to the hospital where one died.

MDFR said the building has 136 units and is 12 stories tall.

“Search and rescue efforts are ongoing with Miami-Dade Fire and Rescue crews searching the building and the debris around the structure for any survivors,” MDFR said in a tweet Thursday .

Witnesses of the Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Florida, which partially collapsed Thursday, said as they were trying to evacuate the adjacent building, “everybody was screaming and panicking.“

Aaron Miles, his girlfriend, and members of their family were staying next door at the Bluegreen resort which has been evacuated. He said, “once you got down to the lobby… it was filled with nothing but dust and debris."

Abigail Crosby said they quickly grabbed the five children who were staying with them and evacuated, “whatever I had, I took.”

We “got out as fast as we could,” Miles said. The group went downstairs to the parking garage basement where a valet let them out.

Miles said that immediately following the collapse people were running around screaming.

“It was awful. Kids, grownups screaming. Women and children crying. It was probably one of the worst experiences I’ve ever witnessed in my life," Miles said.

The family, who is on vacation from Virginia, said everything seemed normal yesterday.

Miles said, “yesterday, the building seemed normal and nothing seemed off, and then like I said we woke up and the building was just gone."

It sounded like loud bang, almost like thunder, but no lightning or storm followed after. That is how Fiorella Terenzi described the moment a building next door to where she lives partially collapsed in the middle of the night.

"This rumbling was very different, very strange. And something was not right in this sound. It was too strong, too violent. It almost felt like a shock wave coming from the next building," she told CNN on Thursday.

She said she went outside on her balcony and saw dust in the air, saying the scene was "dramatic."

"That is when I realized that something is not right, and right away I went downstairs," she said.

Terenzi said she was familiar with the people who lived in the building. She said most of them live and work in Miami. She would see families and older people outside on their balconies or on the beach.

"I see them on the balcony outside sipping a coffee, doing yoga, doing some exercise. I see elderly people who walk even on the balcony walking around, doing some stretching. So I know these people," she said.

"This shouldn't happen. It doesn't make sense that a building where people live peacefully – family and children – in the middle of the night crumble. It doesn't make sense," she added.

CNN's Layla Santiago reports:

Miami-Dade Commissioner Sally Heyman said, as of right now, 51 people who were assumed to have been living in the partially collapsed part of the building have not been accounted for.

Heyman told CNN those people have "not either called out or had people call in to reach them."

Emergency officials are asking people to call 305-614-1819 to report that they are safe or for family members to report their relatives missing.

The commissioner said it is not clear if all 51 people were in the building when it fell because of "vacations or anything else, so we're still waiting and unfortunately the hope is still there, but it is weaning."

Heyman said crews have completed searching and are now shifting to recovery efforts. She said fire rescue and first responders have gone entirely through the building that did not fall, and the part that was partially compromised.

"The rest of the search and rescue efforts has been done by man power on the outside, search on the barrier quarters, also with drones and with dogs. It has shifted now or started to shift to recovery," she said.

She said about 40 people have been evacuated, according to their records. Some of them were helped by other people, she said.

But, Heyman said crews are in "pause mode" right now because of a thunderstorm that has moved into the area.