The death toll in the collapse of a Miami-area condo building rose to 79 on Friday, with another 61 people still unaccounted for.
Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said the work to recover victims was still continuing with all urgency.
“This is a staggering and heartbreaking number that affects all of us very deeply,” Levine Cava said of the new death toll, according to The Associated Press.
The search for survivors shifted to a recovery effort on Wednesday after authorities said they had come to the agonizing conclusion that there was “no chance of life” in the rubble of the Champlain Towers South condo building in Surfside.
No one has been pulled out alive since the first hours after the 12-story Champlain Towers South building fell on June 24.
The search resumed on Monday, hours after the remaining sections of the building were brought down in a controlled explosion, ahead of Tropical Storm Elsa which authorities had feared could have caused the remnants of the structure to fall on search and rescue teams.
Recovery teams operating at the site located holy Jewish books in the pile of rubble left by the collapse of the 12-story condominium tower.
Earlier this week, Israeli Col. Golan Vach was working alongside local rescue teams when he came across shreds of paper, notes, and books which he identified as texts from the Talmud, compilations of Rabbinical discussions, and other texts relating to Jewish law, the Miami Herald reported.
Lifting the stack, he handed it to a South Florida Urban Search and Rescue team member - and someone snapped a photo, which later went viral.
(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)