Condo collapse becomes another link between Latin America and Miami as region mourns tragedy

Latin America woke up on Friday morning with front-page coverage in major newspapers of the Surfside building collapse, a tragedy that has underlined the deep ties between Latin America and Miami, a door to the United States for many migrants and visitors from the region.

Argentina’s La Nación plastered a large, aerial photograph of the destroyed Champlain Towers. Última Hora in Paraguay declared the tragedy a blow to the country’s presidential family, its missing relatives likely lost in the rubble. El País in Uruguay told its readers about the three countrymen who are missing.

As of Friday afternoon, the Miami Herald had identified at least 36 people from Latin American nations — including Colombia, Uruguay, Cuba, Chile, Venezuela, Paraguay and Argentina — and Puerto Rico who had been reported missing by friends, officials and family following the building’s collapse.

Among the most high-profile missing persons following the collapse are the sister and brother-in-law of Paraguayan first lady Silvana López Moreira Bó. Sophia López Moreira Bó and her husband Luis Pettengill had been visiting Miami with their three young children and Lady Villalba, a domestic worker. The family owned units 703 and 1010 at the Champlain Towers, according to public records.

“You feel like you are nothing. You want to do so much but you can’t do it, you have no strength,” Yuby Cartes, an aunt of Pettengill’s, told the Miami Herald. “I’m staying here until I learn something.”

Cartes said that López Moreira Bó’s and Pettengill’s parents were traveling to Miami Thursday to await news. The Associated Press reported that the first lady would also be traveling to Miami on Thursday. However, Paraguayan diplomats in Washington, Asunción, and Miami did not confirm after repeated requests for comments whether López Moreira Bó had arrived.

The Paraguayan Consulate in Miami released a statement on Friday morning acknowledging that six Paraguayan nationals remained missing after the collapse, but did not identify them by name.

More details of the missing continued coming in the hours after the tragedy.

Claudio Bonnefoy Bachelet, a cousin of Alberto Bachelet, father of former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, is among those missing. He lived in unit 1001 with his wife Maricoy Obias-Bonnefoy, who is also missing after the collapse. Known as Maria, she moved to the U.S. from the Philippines in the 1970s and lived in Washington, D.C. She moved to Miami after retiring from a job at the International Monetary Fund, said her niece Irene Obias-Sanchez.

Four of the missing Argentinians belonged to the same family. 48-year-old Graciela Cattarossi lived in unit 501 with her parents, Gino Cattarossi and Graciela Ponce de León, and her 7-year-old daughter Stella, said Monika Kramlik, a friend of the family. Graciela Cattarossi’s sister, Andrea, was visiting at the time of the collapse.

“Graciela is a wonderful single mom, with many, many friends who love and care about her and her sweet daughter Stella,” Kramlik wrote in an email. “We are praying that they are found safe.”

The elder Graciela Ponce de León is a Uruguayan national. Graciela Cattarossi, named after her mother, is an accomplished lifestyle photographer.

And on Friday morning, diplomatic officials from Venezuela and Uruguay told the Herald that they were looking for missing citizens.

Brian Fincheltub, director of consular affairs at the Venezuelan embassy in Washington, D.C., said there are six Venezuelan nationals missing after the condo collapse.

He described them as four individuals between the ages of 20 and 30 and a couple between the ages of 65 and 75. Many of their family members are out of the country, he added, and authorities are in contact with the relatives of the missing.

Eduardo Bouzout, the Uruguayan consul in Miami, said three Uruguayans were missing after the collapse. Two are a couple that did not live in the city, but were vacationing in a second home. They had been there for a month and a half.

The third national is Graciela Ponce de León, the 82-year-old Uruguayan woman who resided in the Surfside building with her Argentinian husband, daughter, and grandchild.

Bouzout said consulate officials searched local hospitals but had not found any of the missing Uruguayans, and that they were in constant contact with the Argentinian consulate because the countries share missing citizens. Still, he said, he remains hopeful.

“Hope is the last thing you lose,” he said.