A search dog from Mexico is at the Surfside collapse site, working with a global crew
The search-and-rescue effort at the Champlain Towers South building collapse site in Surfside includes an international nonprofit group of volunteers trained in Israel called Cadena.
Cadena has responded to more than 1,000 natural disasters and humanitarian crises in 26 countries since its founding in 2005, said Erika Glanz, director of its international emergencies division.
And, even though Glanz is used to coordinating the types of rescue teams like the one working in Surfside, this mission has an even greater sense of urgency for her.
“I personally know four of the missing people,” she said.
Moises Soffer, 36, has been a member of Cadena’s Go Team for five years. Having worked through the rubble of major earthquakes in his home country of Mexico in 2017, he’s the type of seasoned rescuer sought after locally, where disasters and catastrophic emergencies are much more likely to be in the form of hurricanes than building collapses.
Soffer has been on the scene since Friday afternoon. Along with six colleagues, his partner is Oreo, a Pomsky (part Pomeranian, part Siberian husky) trained to find living victims in disasters.
“The people are doing their best,” Soffer said. “The structure was unstable, and that’s why it took time to start working.”
This story was originally published June 28, 2021 at 1:13 PM.
