Names circulate online of Jewish residents injured in Florida building collapse

Names circulate online of several Jewish victims said to have been injured in the collapse of a residential building in Surfside, a town near Miami with a significant Jewish population.

Messages ask for prayers for the injured and missing.

At least 2,500 of the town’s 6,000 residents are Orthodox Jews.

Barry Cohen, 63, says he and his wife were asleep in the building when he first heard what he thought was a crack of lightning. The couple went onto their balcony, then opened the door to the building’s hallway to find “a pile of rubble and dust and smoke billowing around.”

“I couldn’t walk out past my doorway,” says Cohen, the former vice mayor of Surfside. “A gaping hole of rubble.”

He and his wife eventually made it to the basement and found rising water there. They returned upstairs, screamed for help and were eventually brought to safety by firefighters using a cherry-picker.

— with AP

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