Sisters, aged four and 10, buried in same coffin alongside parents after being pulled from rubble of Miami tower block
The bodies of two young sisters pulled from the rubble of a collapsed Miami apartment were buried in the same coffin, alongside their parents on Tuesday.
A funeral for Emma and Lucia Guara, aged four and 10, was held just three blocks from where the Champlain Towers South building partially fell, killing the sisters, their parents, Marcus and Anaely, and dozens of others.
As the death toll climbed to 36, officials overseeing a search operation have sounded increasingly sombre about the prospect of finding anyone alive.
More than 100 people are still unaccounted for, but officials have not detected signs of life in the rubble since shortly after the tower collapsed.
In a tribute to the Guara sisters, Digna Rodriguez, a relative, said Lucia loved watching US game show "Jeopardy” with her dad and doing yoga with her mother. Her younger sister, Emma, enjoyed art, her dad’s piggyback rides and cuddling with her mum.
“May we all connect with family as Lucia would. May we all move with grace as Emma would," Ms Rodriguez said.
"May we all be as devoted and loyal as Marcus and Anaely were.”
According to family members, Lucia had a fierce love for her extended family, and was a big-hearted child who easily connected with others.
A few months ago, she stuffed all of her birthday and tooth fairy money into an envelope and asked her dad to send it to St Jude Children’s Hospital, saying: “They need it more than I do,” her father posted on Facebook.
Lucia's online fundraiser raised £914 pounds for the hospital.
Video released by the Miami-Dade County Fire Rescue Department showed workers lugging pickaxes and power saws through piles of concrete rubble barbed with snapped steel rebar.
Wind and rain from the outer bands of Hurricane Elsa complicated the crews' efforts.
Early on Tuesday, lightning forced rescuers to pause their work for two hours.
“We’re actively searching as aggressively as we can,” Miami-Dade County fire chief Alan Cominsky said at a news conference.
However, he added: “Unfortunately, we are not seeing anything positive. The key things - void spaces, living spaces - we’re not seeing anything like that.”
While officials still call the efforts a search-and-rescue operation, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said families of those still missing are preparing for news of “tragic loss.”
She said President Joe Biden, who visited the area last week, called on Tuesday to offer his continued support.
“I think everybody will be ready when it’s time to move to the next phase,” said Ms Levine Cava, who stressed that crews would use the same care as they go through the rubble even after their focus shifts from searching for survivors to recovering the dead.
No one has been rescued alive since the first hours after the collapse, which struck early on June 24, when many of the building’s residents were asleep. Officials announced on Tuesday that teams had recovered eight additional bodies - the highest one-day total since the collapse.