An Australian woman with a “huge, contagious love for life” and her devoted husband are among the latest deaths confirmed after the collapse of a Florida apartment building.
Miami-Dade Police on Tuesday formally identified Ingrid and Tzvi Ainsworth as victims of the Champlain Towers South building collapse in Surfside, Florida.
The former Sydney residents, aged 66 and 68, were found in the wreckage on Monday, taking the official death toll to 28.
Ingrid, known as Itty, was vibrant, honest, open and had a gift for making people feel like they were “the one”, close friend Tzippy Kastel said.
“She just had this huge, contagious love for life … this amazing aura and an energy about her,” Ms Kastel told AAP.
“People were really drawn to her.
“From joyous to sad or to whatever it was, she was the one I would turn to.”
Ms Kastel, who lives in the Ainsworths’ former home in Sydney, said it was beautiful to see how Tzvi treated hi s wife “like a queen”.
After spending nearly 20 years living in Australia, the Ainsworths moved back to the US four years ago to be closer to some of their seven children and extended family.
A grandchild was born the week of the building’s collapse.
“It’s a huge family and because of the type of people they are, it’s a community-wide tragedy,” Ms Kastel said.
In a blog post for Mother’s Day 2020, daughter Chana Wasserman said her mother made friends with every person she met.
“Everyone was treated as equals. The guy at the laundromat, the guy working at the fruit market, the receptionist at the doctors’ office, the high school kid working at Blockbuster, the seamstress, the lady doing her nails, a pigeon, the stewardess, the lady cleaning the house, the outcast, the misunderstood, the popular, the unpopular.”
Itty also surpassed the saying about seeing the world through rose-coloured glasses.
“My mother sees the world through rai nbow-colored glasses with unicorns and dolphins divin g in and out,” Ms Wasserman said.
The couple’s niece, Devorah Leah Phillips, described her aunt as very loving.
“She fills up everyone’s buckets with an abundance of love and compliments that there is no space for negativity,” Ms Phillips said in an Instagram post last week.
Another 117 people remain missing 11 days after the 12-storey residential building collapsed.
A search-and-rescue effort has continued almost around the clock, pausing only for bad weather, dangerous shifting of the rubble, and the demolition.
Roughly half of the condominium building came tumbling down early in the morning on June 24 and rescue workers were kept away from the unstable half that remained standing for their own safety.
Rescuers have now begun searching through fresh rubble after the last of the building was demolished, allowing crews to scour previously inaccessible places.
Four more victims – including the Ainsworths – have since been disco vered, Miami-Dade police say, raising the death toll to 28 people.
No one has been found alive since the first hours after the collapse.
AAP
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