Two brothers are among the 159 unaccounted for residents of a collapsed 12-story condo building in Surfside, a heavily Jewish town near Miami, Florida.
Brad Cohen, a 51-year old orthopaedic surgeon and his brother, Gary Cohen, also a doctor, who was visiting from Alabama, are both missing.
Brad Cohen’s wife, Soriya Cohen, told Miami Herald reporter Bianca Padró Ocasio that as of Thursday at noon, she was desperately trying to locate her husband.
“This woman is looking for her husband, Brad Cohen, who hasn’t responded for 15 hours. He was in the building that collapsed on the 10th floor. He is an orthopedic surgeon and was with his brother. She’s asking the Surfside community if they have seen him at a nearby hospital,” Ocasio tweeted.
In an update, Ocasio said, “Just spoke to Soriya again, who is still here, and she said she has not been told anything about her husband’s condition. She’s been waiting here since 8AM.”
ABC News reported that both Cohen brothers have not been answering their phones.
Soriya Cohen told KIRO 7 that Gary Cohen was visiting his terminally ill father at the condo building.
"Just look at that rubble," Soriya Cohen said to ABC News. She pointed at the wreckage.
She explained that she and her daughter had been staying at a different location at the time of the building’s collapse because their family was in the middle of moving.
Their son is studying abroad. He is now trying to return home.
She said that the ordeal has been “surreal.”
“My daughter has been in absolute shock,” she said.
A coworker of Brad Cohen told AL.com that Gary Cohen was a doctor at the Tuscaloosa VA Medical Center.
At least 4 people are dead and 159 people are unaccounted for in the building collapse, according to media reports.
Surfside officials stated that 120 building residents have been accounted for. Thirty-five people were rescued from the collapsed Champlain Towers South building, and two people were discovered and removed from the rubble. One of them was a boy.