NEW YORK (VINnews) — During the three days which have passed since the collapse of the Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Miami, there have been a number of signs of life from the rubble. Firefighters tunneling under the condo building that collapsed Thursday morning in Miami said they are hearing noises that could be coming from survivors.
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At a press conference Thursday evening, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Assistant Chief Ray Jadallah said sonar devices were picking up noises from within the rubble.
“We did receive sounds,” Jadallah told reporters. “What sounds like people banging — well not people, but sounds of a possibility of a banging. Short of that, we haven’t heard any voices coming from the pile.”
However one family claims to have received actual telephone calls from a landline situated in an apartment which was in the part of the building that collapsed.
Jake Samuelson’s grandparents, Arnie and Myriam Notkin, live in apartment 302. Samuelson said that his mother’s house line has been receiving calls from the Notkin’s landline phone that he said rested next to their bed. However there is no human sound on the other end of the line, only static.
The family has received a total of 16 calls with the first one coming in the evening after the condo collapse at 9:50 p.m. Thursday.
Samuelson said when the first call came in, the family had a mix of emotions.
“We were all sitting there in the living room, my whole family, Diane, my mother, and we were just shocked and we kind of thought nothing of it because we answered, and it was static,” Samuelson said.
On Friday morning, when the family went to the reunification center, there were more calls – 15 more to be exact, all with the same static.
“We are trying to rationalize what is happening here, we are trying to get answers,” Samuelson said about his grandparents. Arnie is known as a beloved physical education teacher and Myriam is a banker and real estate agent.
Samuelson said the family did not receive any calls on Saturday – the last one was Friday night.