SURFSIDE, US: A team of Israeli search-and-rescue specialists on Sunday joined American workers at the site of a Florida apartment building that partially collapsed Thursday, killing at least five people with 156 still missing.
Teams in protective gear, backed by two huge cranes and aided by sniffer dogs, have been working nonstop in torrid heat and high humidity since the early-morning collapse.
The teams are able to work only a half-hour at the time before handing the job to the next crew.
"There is progress being made," Surfside mayor Charles Burkett told ABC's "This Week." "We've got waves of search-and-rescue teams that are flowing over the site, going in and going out. So it's moving along."
With local workers supplemented by the Israeli team as well as experts from Mexico, "We don't have a resource problem," Burkett said. "We have a luck problem. We need to get more lucky right now."
The 12-story oceanfront Champlain Towers South pancaked in the middle of the night Thursday as residents slept. Surveillance video of the collapse showed it coming down in just a few seconds.
The rescue operation has been agonizingly slow and painstaking, and fears of a much higher death toll are climbing with each passing hour -- though rescuers have stressed that there may yet be survivors trapped inside the rubble.
"My heart is with the community of Surfside as they grieve their lost loved ones and wait anxiously as search and rescue efforts continue," President Joe Biden tweeted Saturday, offering any federal assistance needed.
- 'Make every effort' -
Many members of the local Jewish community were among those affected by the tragedy in Surfside, near Miami Beach, and Israel had vowed to help with the agonizing search and with the identification of victims.
"This is one of the best, if not the best, and the most experienced rescue teams, Israeli rescue teams," Israeli diaspora affairs minister Nachman Shai said as the team arrived early Sunday.
"They've been all over the world in many similar situations."
Earlier, Israeli defense minister Benny Gantz had vowed the team would "make every effort to help save human life, and to offer our support to the Jewish community and to our American friends."
In Surfside, there are about 2,500 Jews -- about half the town's population -- and many of them are members of the Hasidic Chabad-Lubavitch movement, according to the Israeli media, though locals say the numbers have grown since the coronavirus pandemic.
So far, four victims have been identified by local police: Gladys and Antonio Lozano, respectively aged 79 and 83; 54-year-old Stacie Fang, whose 15-year-old son was rescued from the debris Thursday morning; and Manuel LaFont, also 54.
At least 18 Latin American nationals are among the missing -- including Uruguayans, Argentines and Paraguayans. Canada has also said at least four of its citizens may be "affected," without elaborating.
Late Saturday, officials said they had been able to battle back a fire that for days had hampered their efforts, spreading acrid smoke throughout the site.
Families of the missing have expressed frustration and anger at the wait as concerns grown about the building's condition before the collapse.
A study in the 1990s had showed land subsidence in the area, while an engineer's survey of the building in 2018 had pointed to "major structural damage" to a concrete slab beneath a ground-level pool deck, as well as "abundant" damage inside the parking garage.
Authorities have stressed that the reason for the collapse is not yet known, and could take months to determine.
US media have reported that one resident filed a class-action lawsuit against the building's owners seeking compensation for victims less than 24 hours after the tragedy.