The mayor of Surfside, Florida, is calling for people who live in a building near the collapsed condo tower to relocate.
Champlain Towers North is located a block away from the site of Thursday’s deadly catastrophe — and like its sister structure, is a 12-story apartment building constructed in 1981.
“I am going to recommend that we move people out of that building,” Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said Friday, according to WSVN.
“We’ve got an identical building one block away with people living in it, and in an abundance of caution, I think we need to relocate those folks.”
Authorities have not determined what caused a wing of the Champlain Towers South to crumble to the ground, leaving at least four people dead and 159 unaccounted for.
Eli Budwick, the president of the north tower’s condo association, said the oceanfront building is hiring an engineer to double check its stability.
“I’m hoping that this can be down within the next five or six days,” he told the station.
The high-rise contains 111 condos that cost about $725,000, according to its website.
Reaction among residents in the sister building was mixed.
Emelyn Salamorin told the station she was “very” concerned about her building collapsing. But when asked the same question, condo owner Juan Perdomo said, “At this moment, no.”
A 2020 study reportedly found that the Champlain Towers South building had been sinking at a rate of 2 millimeters a year since the 1990s.