A desperate search for survivors extended into the evening hours on Thursday after a condominium collapsed in Surfside, Fla., killing at least one person with more fatalities expected. Ninety-nine people were unaccounted for at the end of the day Thursday as family members awaited news at a reunification center nearby.

“This process is slow and methodical,” Ray Jadallah, assistant fire chief of Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, said at a Thursday afternoon news conference. “Anytime we started breaching parts of the structure, we get rubble falling on us.”

“Everything was just decimated,” said Barry Cohen, a building resident and a former vice mayor of Surfside. “It looked like it had been hit by a missile.”

Here is what photographers at the site of the collapse saw.

Viviana Pena held a photo of her missing aunt as she spoke with reporters outside the Surfside Community Center.

A dog working with rescue workers in the rubble.

Firefighters conducted search-and-rescue operations on Thursday.

A large section of the residential building collapsed.

Raied Jadallah, assistant fire chief of Miami-Dade County Fire and Rescue, spoke at a news conference on Thursday.

People gathered at the Surfside Community Center, which served as a reunification center for victims and families on Thursday.

People entering the Surfside Community Center.

Bystanders watched the search-and-rescue efforts from the beach.

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