Emergency personnel continue to search at the site of a partially collapsed building in Surfside, near Miami Beach, Florida, U.S., June 25, 2021. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Department/Handout via REUTERS

i24 News – Rescuers are still searching for survivors in the rubble of a collapsed Florida apartment tower in a heavily Jewish neighborhood, but the pressure is building for answers to how such a disaster could have occurred.

In a matter of seconds part of the building containing 55 apartments suddenly pancaked, leaving 159 people missing on Friday.

Completed in 1981, Champlain Towers South was undergoing roof work; but county officials discounted this as a cause of the collapse, which so far has killed a confirmed four people.

In addition to the loved ones of the dead and missing, “there’s a lot of other people throughout this community … who want to know how could a building just collapse like that?” Governor Ron DeSantis said.

Families “have a right to know,” he added.

Mike Salberg, waiting for information on five missing family members, echoed this sentiment.

“I want answers,” the New Yorker told AFP. “The families are sidelined.”

Attention has turned to a Florida International University study, based on space-based radar data, which found signs of land subsidence.

This data showed that the building moved subtly, at about two millimeters per year. Experts are divided on whether this could indicate land subsidence or deterioration within the building’s structure.

The New York Times reported Saturday that an engineer who inspected the building three yeas ago cited “abundant” cracking and crumbling, and a need for repairs of the building to maintain its structural integrity.