Water filmed pouring into basement of Miami condo minutes before its collapse as death toll hits 18

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Water was filmed pouring from the ceiling of the doomed Miami condo and into its basement garage minutes before it collapsed – as the death toll from the disaster rose to 18.

The video was recorded at 1.18am on June 24 and zooms in on the entrance to the gated garage beneath the north side of Champlain Towers South – behind which water rains from the ceiling as if blasted from a fire hose. The building was reported to have crumbled at around 1.25am. 

It emerged as six more bodies were pulled from the rubble of the ruined building on Wednesday, with Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava confirming that two of those bodies belonged to the disasters first child victims, aged four and 10. 

The alarming footage was posted to TikTok by Adriana Sarmiento who told Chicago news station WLS-TV that she was on vacation with her husband and was swimming in hotel pool of the Bluegreen Vacations Solara Surfside Resort pool when she heard a noise and went to investigate. 

She pulled out her phone  

Sarmiento said she had tried to notify residents about the danger but they thought she was exaggerating because ‘things like that don’t happen in America.’

An engineer investigating the Miami condo collapse said on Tuesday that the pool may have caved first and brought the rest of the building down with it, as a second witness said that is what she saw before she ran for her life while debris fell around her.   

The footage was shared as Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava confirmed the new death toll Wednesday evening. 

She did not name any of the newly-discovered victims, as efforts to identify their families are ongoing.

Levine Cava said: ‘I am very pained to tell you that we found two additional bodies in the rubble, which brings our total count to 18. 18 fatalities. 

‘It is also with great sorrow, real pain, that I have to share with you that two of these were children aged four and 10. So any loss of life, especially given the unexpected, unprecedented nature of this event, is a tragedy, but the loss of our children is too great to bear.

‘Our community, our nation and the world, we’re all mourning with these families who have lost loved ones and we grieve with them and we lift them up as a community and we’re so grateful for all of the support from all of you everywhere as we continue to dig through the rubble.’ 

‘So we’re now standing united once again with this terrible revelation that children are the victims as well.’ 

A total of 145 people remain unaccounted for, amid fears the final death toll will rise much higher.  

Meanwhile, rescuers trying to free people trapped in the rubble of the destroyed Champlain Towers South condo building told of how they spoke to one woman, whose name was not released, who pleaded for them to free her in the immediate aftermath. 

Tragically, that woman died before they could reach her.  

‘Everybody that was there, that’s what we’re trying to do, get this lady out and comfort her,’ A rescue worker who asked to remain anonymous told Local 10 News. ‘She was asking for help and she was pleading to be taken out of there. We were continuously talking to her . . . Honey, we got you. We’re going to get to you.’ 

But multiple obstacles stood between them, including a dumpster, a wall of concrete and steel infused ‘rebar’ rubble. 

The rescue worker says he and others first on the scene rushed into that debris before anyone even knew if the building was safe, pausing only to send a quick text to his children: ‘Love you guys, always.’

He added that he was never able to see the woman trapped inside, but later learned that she didn’t make it. It is unclear when firefighters spoke to that victim. 

The new death toll was shared hours after Hilda Noriega, 92, became the latest victim of the tragedy to be identified. Noriega lived in Apt. 602 in the 12-story tower and was the mother of North Bay Village Police Chief Carlos Noriega. 

Her body was discovered among the remains of the condo tower Tuesday.  

Noriega, was found with rosaries on her body, according to her priest, Father Juan Sosa from St. Joseph Catholic Church.

‘Maybe she was saying a rosary when this happened,’ Sosa told CNN. ‘She’s with God.’

Sosa says Noriega was a ‘feisty’ woman who was very independent. She walked from Champlain Towers South to church for 12:30 p.m. mass services.

Sosa said that Noriega’s final wish was to be laid to rest with her late husband.

‘We are going to miss her,’ Sosa said.

Now, almost one week on from the tragedy in the early hours of June 24, 147 people are still missing among the rubble. No survivors have been found since Thursday.

Among those unaccounted for is a 52-year-old widower who had moved from New York to Miami for a fresh start following a year of tragedy in which he lost his wife to a brain tumor and both parents to COVID-19.

Harry Rosenberg, 52, has not been seen or heard from since Thursday’s collapse. His daughter Malky Weisz, 27, and her husband, Benny Weisz, 32, are also missing after they traveled from New Jersey to stay with her father.      

Colonel Golan Vach, Commander of the Israeli National Rescue Unit, confirmed Wednesday morning that more bodies had been discovered through the night. 

‘At the last 12 hours we found some more people,’ he told CNN. 

‘We found people. Unfortunately, they are not alive.’

Vach said rescue teams had located tunnels beneath the debris in the space between the collapsed balconies and that more bodies were found in that area.  

He revealed he had never seen a disaster zone like the condo collapse in his more than 20 years of military experience.

‘It’s one of the most difficult and complicated situations that I’ve ever seen,’ Vach told Reuters.  

The Israeli rescue team had built and destroyed 3D models of the condo tower to try to determine where in the wreckage any potential survivors are likely to be before they headed to assist in the search in Miami. 

‘We are looking for the bedrooms because people were sleeping,’ said Vach. 

However, he warned that he had only ‘minor’ hopes that any survivors would be found but denied there are ‘no chances’ of good news.

‘There are minor chances. I would not say there are no chances,’ he said. 

As the search for the dozens still missing continued into the seventh day Wednesday, the Noriega family confirmed the loss of their ‘matriarch of the family’. 

‘The Noriega family was notified last evening of the recovery and positive identification of his mother from the Champlain Towers South catastrophic scene,’ read a statement posted on Twitter by North Bay Village Government on behalf of the family. 

‘The family would like to thank all the hundreds of first responders, who bravely and selflessly risked their lives to locate his mother and the other innocent victims found to date.’ 

The family also thanked officials including Mayor Levine-Cava and Governor Ron DeSantis for their ‘unprecedented leadership, courage and compassion during this extremely difficult time.’ 

‘The Noriegas have lost their ‘heart and soul’ and ‘matriarch’ of their family, but will get through this time by embracing the unconditional love Hilda was known for,’ the statement read. 

‘The family has asked for privacy as they deal with this horrific and painful loss.’ 

Noriega’s son had traveled to the collapse site Thursday to look for his mother, who had only recently celebrated her 92nd birthday.

Among the rubble, the police chief found a birthday card a relative had given to Noriega at a brunch, reported Local10.  

‘On the outside, it was addressed to Hilda and the card had butterflies on it and it was a birthday card signed by her prayer group,’ Sally Noriega, Noriega’s daughter-in-law, told the outlet.

The other 11 victims already identified are: Marcus Joseph Guara, 52; Frank Kleiman, 55; Michael Davis Altman, 50; Leon Oliwkowicz, 80; Christina Elvir Oliwkowicz, 74; Luis Bermudez, 26; Anna Ortiz, 46; Stacie Dawn Fang, 54; Antonio Lozano, 83; Gladys Lozano, 79; and Manuel ‘Manny’ LaFont, 54.  

Dozens of families are still waiting for answers about the safety and whereabouts of their missing loved ones including Rosenberg, his daughter and son-in-law. 

Friends of Rosenberg told Associated Press how the 52-year-old widower had moved to the beachfront condo for a much-needed change of scenery.

‘He told me, ‘It is the next chapter of my life.’ He went through hell. His parents passed away. His wife passed away,’ said Steve Eisenberg, who saw Rosenberg last week at the synagogue.  

Rosenberg’s wife died last summer from a brain tumor.

Maurice Wachsmann, a friend of Rosenberg’s for more than 30 years, said he had ‘put his life on hold’ for the last three years while he took care of her.

Just months after his wife died, Rosenberg faced further tragedy. 

His father died of COVID-19 in January, with his mother dying from the virus just weeks later. 

Wachsmann said Rosenberg always put ‘family first, before everything’ and so the last year had been ‘extremely difficult.’ 

Rosenberg, an observant Jew, had launched a young adult center for mental healing at a hospital in Israel in memory of his late wife, Anna Rosenberg. 

Rosenberg decided to move to Florida for a fresh start, settling into the Champlain Towers South condo just one month before it collapsed. 

The home was to be a gathering spot for visiting children and grandchildren, and his daughter and son-in-law were doing just that when they traveled to the condo last week to join him for the Sabbath.

Now, all three family members are missing in the rubble. 

With 147 still unaccounted for and hopes fading that people will be found alive, the disaster is shaping up to be one of the deadliest non-deliberate structural failures in US history. 

The search for victims and survivors has been hampered by numerous challenging factors including the threat of falling debris, heavy rain and wind, and the discovery of deep fires in the rubble over the weekend.

While the search continues, questions continue to mount over what caused the collapse and whether critical failures by building officials left residents in the dangerous tower ahead of its collapse.   

An alarming 2018 structural survey warned of ‘major structural damage’ in the building specifically to the pool area and underground parking garage. 

On Tuesday, just 36 hours before the collapse, a contractor photographed worrying signs of damage in the parking garage. 

The 1981 building was coming up for recertification – a process which is required every 40 years for buildings in Miami Dade.

Fears are now growing over the safety of other buildings in the county.

Miami Dade County officials said they are inspecting 501 buildings that is 40 years or older to make sure none are compromised like Champlain Towers South.