A screenshot taken from a video released by the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue on June 25, 2021 shows first responders rescuing survivors from a partially collapsed residential building in Miami-Dade County, Florida, the United States.(Photo: Xinhua)

 

Photo released by the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue on June 25, 2021 shows a partially collapsed residential building in Miami-Dade County, Florida, the United States.(Photo: Xinhua)

 
Four more victims of the collapse of a condominium in Surfside, Florida, have been found, bringing the death toll from the disaster to 16, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava confirmed Wednesday.

"We've now recovered four additional victims. The number of deceased is at 16," the mayor said during a press conference updating the current development in the ongoing rescue process, which entered Day 7.

With the latest discovery, the number of people unaccounted for reduced to 147, and those accounted for were numbered at 139, according to Cava.

The mayor also clarified how officials have been organizing the numbers, saying they "were previously including the number of deceased in the accounted for number, but for clarity moving forward we're separating that. So we have deceased, accounted, and unaccounted."

Amid concerns that chances for finding anyone still alive became increasingly slim, Miami-Dade Fire and Rescue Chief Alan Cominsky said their mission was "absolutely still a search and rescue mission," noting that the large concrete slabs that were crumbling had made their job more difficult.

"With this type of collapse, (it's) very difficult to move any of the large concrete slabs. They're crumbling as we try to move them. That just compounds them," Cominsky said.

Earlier in the day, Golan Vach, commander of the Israeli National Rescue Unit -- which was providing assistance to its U.S. counterparts on site -- said rescuers found new tunnels Tuesday night that are large enough for them to discover bodies.

"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 said as he was interviewed by CNN.

Vach added he had "very minor" hope teams on the pile would be able to find survivors.