Death toll climbs to 36 in Oakland warehouse fire

Officials in Oakland, California, resumed searching for victims of a warehouse fire over the weekend while death toll climbed to 36 as of Monday morning.

The search was suspended on Sunday night, as the warehouse seemed to be unstable. It started again at 9:00 a.m. on Monday, Oakland Police Department spokeswoman Johnna Watson told a press briefing shortly before noon.

In addition, Watson said a local utility would cut power supply to more than 50 households in the immediate neighborhood for up to 12 hours, so as to enable bringing in "a big crane" for the search and recovery operation at the two-story structure.

Overnight, authorities released names of seven victims that had been identified. All of them were Californians in their 20s and 30s, including 4 Oakland residents and 2 others from nearby cities in northern California. The name of an additional victim, a 17-year-old minor, was withheld.

On Monday, authorities said they have identified a total of 11 victims.

The site of the deadly blaze, which started Friday night and lasted into Saturday morning, was treated as a crime scene and Oakland Mayor Libby Schaafa told a briefing Sunday afternoon that a criminal investigation team was "activated" to probe into the worst fire in the city's history. Endit