The head of an Israel Defense Forces team of search-and-rescue experts said Wednesday morning that more bodies have been recovered in the rubble of the collapsed Florida condo tower.
“At the last 12 hours we found some more people,” Col. Golan Vach, commander of the Israeli National Rescue Unit, told CNN’s John Berman on “New Day.” “We found people. Unfortunately, they are not alive.”
The official death toll in the disaster stood at 12 on Wednesday, with 149 people unaccounted for.
Vach said first-responders discovered new tunnels in the debris Tuesday night, which allowed for the discovery of more bodies.
He said search-and-rescue teams were working in the space between the pancaked balconies.
“These tunnels that we found right now were almost the first to be big enough to enable people to stay between them. Most of the collapse is very, very tight. The collapse was major,” Vach told CNN.
Vach would not reveal how many bodies were found because the relatives have not been notified.
He added that he had “very minor” hope the teams would be able to find any survivors.