SURFSIDE, Fla. — At least 159 people were unaccounted for Saturday, two days after the collapse of part of a 12-story residential building in Surfside, Florida, authorities have said.
Search and rescue teams have been feverishly scouring the site since shortly after 55 of the building’s 136 units fell. Four people are dead, officials have said. One was identified as Stacie Fang, the mother of a boy from the rubble.
Here’s what we know about the missing.
Family of Paraguay’s first lady
The sister and brother-in-law of Paraguay’s first lady, Silvana López Moreira, were staying with their three children at the building, and Paraguay’s ministry of external relations has not been able to locate the family, the ministry told CNN en Español.
That family — including Sophia López Moreira and her husband Luis Pettengill — was in the US to receive COVID-19 vaccinations, Paraguay’s foreign minister said.
Lady Vanessa Luna Villalba, a nanny from rural Paraguay employed by Moreira, is also among the missing.
The Paraguayan first lady, along with her parents and her brother-in-law’s parents, arrived in Florida on Thursday after the collapse, the Paraguayan President’s office said.
Six Paraguayans in all are unaccounted for, the ministry tweeted.
Parents say their son is missing
Ronit Felszer and Carlos Naibryf told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Friday night that their son, Ilan Naibryf, is missing.
Ilan and his girlfriend were in town for a funeral and staying in the condo at an apartment her family had, Naibryf’s parents said.
Describing him as a “loyal friend, a passionate, good, kind, generous young man,” Felszer said their son is turning 22 in September and due to graduate the University of Chicago as a physics major next May.
An aunt and uncle missing
Bettina Obias also said her aunt and uncle, Maria and Claudio Bonnefoy, are also missing.
She told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that as soon as she heard about the collapse, she went to the site herself.
“As soon as I saw this, I fell apart,” she said, referring to the rubble.
She said that while she’s trying to be realistic, she also is holding on to “a sliver of hope.”
“I know in my heart somebody there is still alive and if it’s not my aunt or uncle, I hope it’s somebody’s father, or somebody’s son,” Obias said. “I’m hoping that there are many survivors.”
She said her uncle was a retired United Nations legal counsel and her aunt was an International Monetary Fund budget official.
Father and orthopedic surgeon
Florida resident Soriya Cohen told ABC News that her husband, Brad Cohen, a 51-year-old orthopedic surgeon, and her brother-in-law, Gary Cohen, a doctor visiting from Alabama, both are missing. Soriya Cohen said they haven’t been answering their phones and she does not have hope that they are alive.
“Just look at that rubble,” Soriya Cohen told ABC News, pointing at the wreckage.
She said she and her daughter were staying in a different home at the time because their family is in the process of moving. Her son is currently studying abroad and trying to get home, she said.
“It’s been surreal,” she added. “My daughter has been in absolute shock.”
A family is holding out hope that their loved ones, a newlywed couple who recently moved from Brooklyn, are safe after a massive building collapse in Florida.
For the families, the waiting is excruciating.
“We just wanna know where he is and how he’s doing,” Valery Manashirova said.
Manashirova’s brother, Dr. Russel Manashirova and his wife Nicole Doran moved to the seventh floor of the Champlain Towers South in Surfside to be closer to work. They just got married in May.
“It was a beautiful wedding and they were just starting their lives,” Manashirova said.
9 Argentines, including a couple and their daughter
Argentines Andrés Galfrascoli, 45, his partner Fabián Nuñez, 55, and their daughter, Sofía Galfrascoli Núñez, 6, are among the missing, according to a friend.
The three were on vacation in Florida, staying at the condo of a friend, Nicolás Fernández.
Fernández told CNN en Español he spent time with the couple Wednesday night and made plans to meet up Thursday morning.
“We don’t know anything, we don’t have any closure and that’s what hurts,” Fernández told CNN.
Fernández has looked for his friends in local hospitals with no luck.
Nine Argentines were missing as of Thursday afternoon, the country’s consulate in Miami said on Twitter.
A relative of Chile’s ex-president
The first cousin of former Chilean President and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet’s father is among those missing, his daughter told CNN Chile.
Since the collapse, Pascale Bonnefoy has not been able to communicate with her father, who lived in the part of the building that fell, she said.
“We haven’t been able to have specific information,” Bonnefoy said, adding the whereabouts of her father’s wife also aren’t known. She did not specify his wife’s nationality.
The Chilean consulate in Miami has offered to support the family in the search, Bonnefoy said. “I contacted the consul, and he offered his help, but since there is no information either, there is not much that can be done.”
So far, Chilean authorities have not reported missing nationals after the collapse. CNN is trying to contact the Chilean consulate in Miami.
Gil and Betty Guerra
Gil Guerra and his wife, Betty Guerra, lived on the ninth floor of the building, his daughter said, and there has been no word from them since the tragedy.
“We’re doing our best to stay hopeful,” Michelle Guerra told CNN via Facebook Messenger Saturday. “That’s what they would want.”
Her father and stepmother were in the process of moving out of apartment 910 and had just gotten furniture at their new apartment on Monday, she said.
The couple was renting, and the owner was in the process of selling the unit, according to Guerra, who said she said she last spoke to her dad on Father’s Day
“This is all so horrific and bizarre. They are both such caring, hardworking people,” Guerra said.
“They only got married late 2017 and have been living it up like two teenagers in love traveling the world and eating all they can together,” she said. “They lived a full time together.”
6 Colombians
Six Colombian citizens are unaccounted for following the collapse, Colombian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Camila Mugno told CNN on Friday.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether they were inside the building at the moment of the collapse. Records indicated that the six had been staying there, the foreign ministry’s office said.
The six Colombian citizens include a family of three from Medellin, and other travelers, Mugno told CNN.
Venezuelans also missing
“At the moment we are handling information from six Venezuelans not located in the collapse of the building in Surfside,” Brian Fincheltub, Venezuela’s consular affairs director, tweeted.
Jewish community members are missing, rabbis say
Some members from The Shul of Bal Harbour synagogue are among the people unaccounted for, Rabbi Sholom Lipskar told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
“This is something that transcends our capacity for understanding,” Lipskar said about the collapse. “It’s a reality, we accept it and we have to learn as we do in our culture of resilience to move forward.”
“The only thing that helps in these times is kindness and empathy and togetherness, because you can’t take away the reality,” Lipskar said.
Members of the synagogue believed to be missing are Nancy Kress Levin, Jay Kleinman, Frankie Kleinman, Arie Leib, Yisroel Tzvi Yosef and Tzvi Doniel, according to Lipskar.
Rabbi Zalman Lipskar told CNN’s Randi Kaye he believes at least 20 people associated with the Shul of Bal Harbour are missing. Their ages range from 20 to 60 years old.
He said he spoke with one woman who believes that she is missing seven or eight of her family members. He told CNN he also knows of a couple, both 26 years old, and a doctor who is a member of his synagogue, who are missing as well.
The rabbi said an older couple — the parents of his childhood friend — are also missing.
“It’s just been heart-wrenching … not knowing, and not being able to really deal with this magnitude of the tragedy that’s unfolding,” the rabbi said.
Rabbi Eliot Pearlson, who leads Temple Menorah, told CNN’s Chris Cuomo, “It’s hard to explain. This doesn’t happen in America. It’s doesn’t happen in Miami Beach. It doesn’t happen in our homes. And it’s very difficult to comprehend how it’s possible.”
Pearlson said that he saw people come together in compassion following the collapse, and his temple will host an emergency prayer service on Friday.
Three generations of one family from his temple are among those unaccounted for, he said.
He added, “I have to tell you, when I walked past ground zero, there was row after row after row of firefighters who are literally waiting to rush into a building that could fall at any time.”
Uruguayan citizens missing
Three Uruguayan citizens are among the missing, according to the consulate in Miami.
The consulate is in contact with local authorities and with the families of the people missing, said Consul General Eduardo Bouzout.
“The relatives are very concerned, of course, because they have not been able to contact them since they have knowledge of this tragic collapse,” said Bouzout in audio shared by the consulate with CNN.
Missing mother and grandmother
A woman who said creaking noises woke her up in the building the night before the collapse is missing, her son, Pablo Rodriguez, said.
Both his mother and grandmother were in the section that collapsed first, and the family hasn’t heard from them, Rodriguez told CNN.
“You always hold out hope,” he said. “Until we definitively know, we are trying to stay hopeful. But after seeing the video of the collapse it’s increasingly difficult, because they were in that section that was pancaked in, in the first section that fell in, and then the other building fell on top of it, so it’s not easy to watch.”
Rodriguez said he and his mother didn’t really think anything about the creaking noise.
“It was just a comment she made offhand, that’s why she woke up, and then she wasn’t able to go back to sleep afterward — but now in hindsight, you always wonder,” he said.
The family is still holding out hope for good news, Rodriguez said.
“We are praying for a miracle, but at the same time trying to be as realistic about it as possible,” he said. “Until we definitely know, there is hope. It’s just dwindling by the minute.”
The Patel family
Vishal Patel, his wife Bhavna Patel, and their 1-year-old daughter Aishani Patel are believed to be among the missing, their niece Sarina Patel told CNN, adding that Bhavna Patel is four-months pregnant.
Sarina Patel told CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Friday she last spoke to her family on Father’s Day.
“I had actually called them to tell them I had just booked a flight to come visit because they’ve been asking me to come see their home and to meet their daughter I haven’t met her due to the pandemic.”
They were home at the time the collapse took place, Patel told Cuomo.
“We have tried calling them countless of times and there’s just been no answers, text messages, nothing,” she said. “They haven’t contacted anybody.”
Judy Spiegel
Kevin Spiegel, who lived in Champlain Towers with his wife, Judy, said he was on a business trip in California when the building collapsed.
When he woke up in the middle of the night, he had an emergency notice on his phone, he told CNN’s Anderson Cooper, and he notified the rest of his family.
“We’re very hopeful that the community here will be able to find our loved ones,” said Josh Spiegel, Judy’s son, who lives in Orlando.
“My mom is an absolutely amazing person,” Josh Spiegel said. “She’s a fighter, and she fights for every single one of us, and we won’t stop … fighting until we find her,” he said.
“We have a lot of hope that Judy is still alive, and still there,” said Kevin Spiegel. “She’s an amazing person.”
Her daughter, Rachel Spiegel, last received a text from her mother around 9 p.m. Wednesday — roughly four and a half hours before the collapse, she told CNN.
That text was about a princess dress that Judy ordered for one of Rachel’s daughters. The family has been Judy’s main focus, Rachel said.
Judy has a bond with her grandchildren, and “the other kids that we hang out with, they love Grandma Judy — everybody calls her Grandma Judy,” Rachel said.
Cassondra Billedeau-Stratton
Cassondra Stratton, the wife of Michael Stratton, a Democratic political strategist from Colorado, is among those still believed to be missing, his law firm’s spokesperson Lara Day told CNN.
The 40-year-old has worked as an actress, model and Pilates instructor, bringing “a vivacious love of life to everything she does,” her husband said in a statement.
“Cassie is a wife, mother and true friend to so many,” said Michael Stratton said. He told Denver’s KMGH-TV that and his wife spent much of their time during the coronavirus pandemic in the condo they have owned for four years.
Billedeau-Stratton loved walking and biking along the beach, her sister, Stephanie Fonte, told the New York Times. When the sisters were together, she often would make them pose for photos on the beach or near a burst of flowers.
Michael Stratton said he and his wife were talking on the phone when the building collapsed.
“She described that the building was shaking and then … the phone went dead,” he said.
Garciella Cattarossi and some of her relatives
Garciella Cattarossi, her daughter Estella and Cattarossi’s elderly parents are missing after the collapse, Cattarossi’s friend Mariela Porras told CNN on Friday.
When Porras learned of the collapse and realized it was Cattarossi’s building, she called Cattarossi but got no answer, she said.
She described Cattarossi as a talented photographer who has been working to get her real estate license and “is just a wonderful person trying to always do the right thing.”
3 members of Velasquez family
Three members of the Velasquez family are also believed missing after the building collapse, according to family members.
David Velasquez posted on Facebook that his parents, Julio Cesar Velasquez, 67, and Angela Maria Velasquez, 60, live in the 12-story residential building.
His sister Theresa Velasquez, 36, had come to visit her parents and was staying with them at the time of the collapse.
David Velasquez’s wife confirmed that they were missing in a text message to CNN. She said the family requests privacy at this time.
Her father is missing
Debbie Hill says her father is also missing in the building collapse.
“Not knowing is the big issue,” she told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Friday. “I have a relative who’s down there at the center and he gets more information off the news than he does being down there.”
“When they show the live views, you don’t realize how massive this is until you see a person standing on the top of the pile,” she said.
Hill said her father was in one of the top floors of the building.
“My dad was in air freight sales most of his life,” she said. “He had a lot of friends throughout the country, throughout the world. He loved what he did, he enjoyed fishing, he liked to travel. He was just getting ready to retire.”
“He was going to be training somebody that’s replacing him in the fall and then we got the phone call and everything in our world changed,” Hill said.
Hilda Noriega
Hilda Noriega had called Champlain Towers home for more than 20 years. But six years after her husband died, the 92-year-old was ready to leave.
“We were going to move her into our home and her condo was up for sale,” said Sally Noriega, her daughter-in-law.
Sally Noriega said her mother-in-law was extremely active and loved living so close to the ocean and to her friends. But, she said, “when you lose a spouse you want to be surrounded by family … and she wanted to spend more time with her family and grandchildren.”
Hilda Noriega’s daughter-in-law described her as “an extremely loving and sweet person,” who built a life with her husband and raised a family after coming to the U.S. from Cuba in 1960.
“She was just one of those people who from the first time she met a person she instantly loved that person and that person instantly loved her,” said Sally Noriega, who rushed to the scene of the collapse with her husband, Carlos Noriega.
There, they found a reminder of the particularly strong bond Hilda Noriega shared with members of her church group. As they stood trying to hold onto hope amid the rubble, Carlos Noriega noticed an envelope peeking out from under his shoe.
“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,” said Sally Noriega. “They had taken her out for her birthday and they all signed the card.”
Sally Noriega said the family does not know what to make of the card found among so much debris and chaos.
But, “we are a family of faith,” she said. “We’ll just leave it at that.”
Myriam and Arnie Notkin
Myriam Caspi Notkin, 81, and her husband, Arnold “Arnie” Notkin, 87, married about 20 years ago after losing their spouses, according to a family friend.
“They were a happy couple. We’re hoping for a miracle,” said Fortuna Smukler, a North Miami Beach commissioner who grew up with Myriam Notkin’s three daughters. When they ran into each other as adults, Notkin always recalled her friendship with Smukler’s mother, who died 40 years ago.
“Every time Myriam would see me, she always had to make a point of saying how wonderful my mother was,” Smukler said. “She was very thoughtful.”
Smukler also knew Arnie Notkin dating back to his days as a physical education teacher and coach at Leroy D. Fienberg Elementary School in South Beach in the 1960s. He had an engaging personality and always had a story to tell.
“He had students who became famous, and he had to tell me about them, how they were good or mischievous,” she said.
Maria Theresa and Ricky Rovirosa
Maria Theresa and Ricky Rovirosa are a “perfect match” who support each other and others, according to longtime friend Monika Mucarsel Gressier.
The couple has two grown children they raised in their South Miami home, and used their Surfside condo as a part-time summer getaway. Gressier was living in California when she met Maria Theresa, whom she called Maituca, through work.
“We became instant friends,” Gressier said in a text message. “She was one reason that gave me security and support for accepting a relocation to live in Miami. Maituca became my family support and always gave me and others the resources and guidance to navigate through the city of Miami.”
Gressier described Ricky as charming and his wife as “stunningly beautiful” inside and out.
“When I think of them, I think of one of my favorite memories of the times I watched them dance salsa and how loving they were always to each other,” Gressier wrote. “I am praying and hoping that they will survive this tragedy, as I know the strength, they both carry within, and I also know that their tremendous love for their girls and family will keep them fighting to survive this.”
The Associated Press, ABC News and ABC Owned TV Stations contributed to this report.
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