Firefighters bring toys found in rubble to makeshift memorial near collapsed Florida condo building
(Photos courtesy: Leo Soto)
SURFSIDE, Fla. - A makeshift memorial is growing outside the site where a 12-story beachfront condo building partially collapsed in South Florida, killing at least 11 people and leaving 150 unaccounted for.
For five days, firefighters have been performing the heartbreaking task of searching through the rubble of the collapsed Champlain Towers South condo building in Surfside to search for survivors.
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Volunteers and nearby residents created a memorial wall near the site as a way to give relatives of those missing a way to post photos of their loved ones, WTVJ reported.
(Photos courtesy: Leo Soto)
Now firefighters who have been painstakingly searching through the rubble have also begun contributing to the memorial, placing objects they have found among the debris alongside the photos and the flowers on the chain-link fence.
MORE: Task Force 3 deploys to Surfside to assist in rescue efforts
Leo Soto, who helped set up the memorial, shared photos showing Miami-Dade Fire Rescue as they brought small mementos they had found and placed them at the nearby memorial, including several toys and stuffed animals.
(Photos courtesy: Leo Soto)
One of those toys is a "Winnie the Pooh" bear, wearing a shirt that reads, "Baby's 1st Pooh Bear" on the front. Another one of Soto's images shows the same bear sitting among the twisted metal and broken concrete debris from the fallen condo tower.
Soto told WPEC that the first responders brought the toys to the Surfside memorial wall with tears in their eyes.
(Photos courtesy: Leo Soto)