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A man armed with a long knife killed three people and injured several others, some seriously, in the southern city of Wuerzburg Friday (Saturday morning AEST) before being shot by police and arrested, German authorities said.

It was unclear how many people were injured in the attack in a central part of the Bavarian city. Police identified the suspect as a 24-year-old Somali man living in Wuerzburg. His life was not in danger from his gunshot wound, they said.

Videos posted on social media showed pedestrians surrounding the attacker and holding him at bay with chairs and sticks.

A woman who said she had witnessed the incident told German RTL television that the police then stepped in.

"He had a really big knife with him and was attacking people," Julia Runze said. "And then many people tried to throw chairs or umbrellas or cellphones at him and stop him."

"The police then approached him and I think a shot was fired, you could hear that clearly."

Police spokeswoman Kerstin Kunick said officers were alerted around 5pm to a knife attack on Barbarossa Square in the centre of the city.

Bavaria's governor Markus Soeder expressed shock at the news of the attack. "We grieve with the victims and their families," he wrote on Twitter.

Police said on Twitter that there was no danger to the population. They declined to immediately provide further information and urged social media users to refrain from speculation.

Bavaria's top security official, Joachim Herrmann, was on his way to Würzburg, a city of about 130,000 people located between Munich and Frankfurt.

The death toll from Thursday's partial collapse of a South Florida residential building has risen to four and the number of unaccounted increased by the dozens, officials said Friday morning, as a painstaking search continued for survivors in the rubble.

Three bodies were found overnight from Thursday into Friday in the wreckage of Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Assistant Fire Chief Raide Jadallah said — adding to one found early Thursday.

Family members identified Stacie Fang as a victim killed in the collapse. Fang is the mother of Jonah Handler, a boy who was pulled alive from the rubble, the family said in a statement.

"There are no words to describe the tragic loss of our beloved Stacie," the Fang and Handler family statement said. "The members of the Fang and Handler family would like to express our deepest appreciation for the outpouring of sympathy, compassion and support we have received. The many heartfelt words of encouragement and love have served as a much needed source of strength during this devastating time."

READ MORE: Biden on Florida building collapse: 'Our heart goes out to them'

The number of people unaccounted for is now 159, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told reporters — up from the figure of 99 that officials gave Thursday afternoon.

"We will continue search and rescue, because we still have hope we will find people alive," Levine Cava said at a news conference Friday morning.

Three of the four victims have been identified, according to Dr. Emma Lew, director of the Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner Department. One victim died at a hospital. No other information was provided.

Two victims were being treated at Jackson Health System hospital, a spokesperson said.

About 55 of the 136 units at the building a few miles north of Miami Beach collapsed at around 1.30am. Thursday, leaving huge piles of rubble on the ground and materials dangling from what remained of the structure, officials said.

Since then, numerous search and rescue personnel have been scouring the rubble, including from the surface, with search dogs, sonar and cameras.

Structural engineers also have been shoring up other places — such as areas near a parking garage underneath the rubble — to allow crews to tunnel underneath with light machinery.

Thirty-five people were rescued from standing portions of the building by first responders, Jadallah said Thursday.

https://twitter.com/GMA/status/1408398595733196808?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

The cause of the collapse wasn't immediately known.

Rescuers on Friday will use heavy machinery to pull "some of the superficial metal from above," which will help identify voids where survivors could be, Jadallah said Friday morning.

"As we move through the building, we constantly monitor, making sure that there's no movement, every piece of rubble that we move, we have to take, make efforts to stabilise the building, inch by inch," Miami-Dade Fire Rescue District Chief Jason Richard told CNN.

Officials don't know how many people were in the building

Florida State Fire Marshal Jimmy Patronis said the search involved "that delicate balance of saving lives while risking lives," with the accumulation of water used to extinguish fires adding dangerous weight to the unstable remains of the buildings.

Crews were taking down license plate numbers of cars in the parking garage in an attempt to determine who was in the building, Patronis said.

Surfside Town Manager Andy Hyatt said officials do not know how many people were in the building at the time of the collapse.

"We know that it was about 80 per cent occupied but that doesn't mean that there was 80% occupied with people," he told CNN Friday.

"We know that some families around here travel quite a bit."

Hyatt said the town's building official had been on the roof of the tower — where work was being done — and that "it was fine."

The building's residents reflected South Florida's international and cultural mix, with affluent families from Argentina, Paraguay and Colombia and a tight-knit Jewish community.

Kevin Spiegel said his wife, Judy, is among the missing. He said he was out of town at the time of the collapse.

"She's just the most amazing person in the world and we would do anything to have her back," he told CNN, his two sons — Michael and Josh — at his side.

President Joe Biden on Friday approved an emergency declaration for the state, making federal aid available to Florida — including equipment and other resources — and authorising FEMA to coordinate disaster relief efforts.

Additionally, a team of engineers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology is being sent to Surfside to determine whether a larger investigation that could impact building codes everywhere is needed.

The federal agency studies building structural failures and recommends changes to building codes, fire response and emergency communications, according to spokeswoman Jennifer Huergo.

The goal of such an investigation, Huergo said, would be to determine "the technical cause of the collapse" and the possible need for "changes to building codes, standards and practices."

Engineers weigh in on the collapse

Although the cause of the partial collapse wasn't known, some engineers who saw it on video shared their expertise with CNN on why the building fell the way it did.

Greg Batista, a structural engineer who did work on the building years ago, said concrete repair and a spalling problem can cause collapses.

Spalling can occur when part of the surface of the concrete peels, breaks or chips.

"Spalling can get to a point that, if not repaired, it can lead to eventual collapse, and I've been to places where there have been collapses of floors, of beams, of columns," Batista said.

Batista noted that for that type of collapse to occur, the malfunction of one column is enough to bring a structure down.

"All it takes is one column, and everything can come down like a Jenga," he said. "After having seen the video … you see the actual building coming down, and the actual collapse begins on one of the lower floors. So immediately, I see that something happened down there."

Another structural engineer, Kit Miyamoto, who is California's seismic safety commissioner, echoed Batista's take.

"This collapse is a real classic … column failure, which means the building itself was supported by a series of pillars. If the pillars fail, everything fails. So that's exactly what looked like that," Miyamoto told CNN.

Batista offered a glimmer of hope for those unaccounted for, saying it's entirely possible for more people to be rescued.

"If you go back to videos of building crumbling in the past, you've seen miracles of babies being pulled out of small voids either the day after or the week after. There's certainly a possibility that this can happen here," Batista said.

Kenneth Direktor, an attorney for the association of residents at the condo, said the building had "thorough engineering inspections over the last several months" in preparation for compliance with a 40-year certification.

The building was constructed in 1981, according to online Miami-Dade property records. Building standards were strengthened after highly destructive Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

"What that tells you is…. nothing like this was foreseeable, at least it wasn't seen by the engineers who were looking at the building from a structural perspective," Direktor told CNN.

An engineer had already conducted inspections to determine needed repairs, but the only work that had actually commenced was on the roof, Direktor said.

Shimon Wdowinski, a professor with Florida International University's Institute of Environment, told CNN he determined in a study last year that the Champlain Towers South condo showed signs of sinking in the 1990s.

The condo had a "subsidence" rate of about 2 millimetres a year from 1993 to 1999, according to his study, first reported by USA Today.

While Wdowinski said this sinking alone would likely not cause the condo's collapse, he said it could be a contributing factor.

"If one part of the building moves with respect to the other, that could cause some tension and cracks," he explained.

The professor said buildings in other areas had moved at higher rates, and he didn't find the condo building's movement unusual.

"What's unusual is that today it collapsed," he said.

What we know about those unaccounted for

At least 30 people believed to be missing are from several Latin American countries, according to officials from the respective countries.

At least nine are from Argentina.

They included Andrés Galfrascoli, 45, his partner Fabián Nuñez, 55, and their daughter, Sofía Galfrascoli Núñez, 6, according to a friend. The group was staying at a friend's condo for vacation.

"We don't know anything, we don't have any closure and that's what hurts," friend Nicolás Fernández told CNN.

Six Paraguayans, including the sister of Paraguayan First Lady Silvana López Moreira, the brother-in-law and their three children are still unaccounted for.

The first lady's relatives live on the 10th floor of the partially collapsed building, and Paraguay's ministry of external relations has not been able to locate the family, the ministry told CNN en Español.

Officials representing Uruguay and Venezuela also reported missing citizens, and at least six Colombians resided in the building, authorities said.

More locally, the family of a mother and grandmother who were in the section of the building that collapsed haven't heard from them, the son, Pablo Rodriguez, told CNN.

"We are praying for a miracle, but at the same time trying to be as realistic about it as possible," he said. "Until we definitely know, there is hope. It's just dwindling by the minute."

Some members from the Shul of Bal Harbour synagogue are also among those unaccounted for, Rabbi Sholom Lipskar told CNN.

"This is something that transcends our capacity for understanding," Lipskar said about the collapse. "It's a reality, we accept it and we have to learn as we do in our culture of resilience to move forward."

Rabbi Eliot Pearlson, who leads Temple Menorah, told CNN's Chris Cuomo, "It's hard to explain. This doesn't happen in America. It's doesn't happen in Miami Beach. It doesn't happen in our homes. And it's very difficult to comprehend how it's possible."

Pearlson said he saw people come together in compassion following the collapse, and his temple will host an emergency prayer service on Friday.

Three generations of one family from his temple are of the 99 people unaccounted for, he said.

"I have to tell you, when I walked past ground zero, there was row after row after row of firefighters who are literally waiting to rush into a building that could fall at any time," he added.

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A one-week lockdown has begun for more than 1 million people in Sydney in a bid to stop the spread of the Delta variant of COVID-19 across the city.

A stay-at-home order, lasting until Friday, July 2, was issued by the NSW government on Friday for the four local government areas (LGAs) of Woollahra, Waverley, Randwick and the City of Sydney.

From 11.59pm on Friday, anyone who has been working in those LGAs over the past two weeks must not leave their homes without good reason, regardless of where in Sydney they live.

READ MORE: What NSW local government area am I in and is my suburb in lockdown?

"We don't want to see the situation linger for weeks, we would like to see the situation end sooner rather than later," NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said.

The four reasons to leave home are: shopping for essential items; care and compassionate reasons; exercise (in groups less than 10); work and education that cannot be conducted remotely.

Businesses in the four LGAs — including gyms, bars and nightclubs — have been ordered into lockdown as well, closing for the next week.

READ MORE: Q&A: Sydney's lockdown rules

"Unless you're providing essential food and services, that is take away food and services or grocery services of that nature, we don't expect those businesses to remain open in the next week," Ms Berejiklian said.

The lockdown began just as NSW Health issued a new alert for exposure sites linked to people who have tested positive to COVID-19.

Popular restaurants Hugo's Manly and The Boathouse Shelly Beach are listed as close contact sites for people who were there on Saturday, June 19 between 5.30pm-8.15pm, and Sunday, June 20 between 8.35am-11.40am respectively. (Full list of exposure sites below)

Anyone who attended a screening of Fast & Furious 9 at Reading Cinema in Auburn on Sunday at 6.30pm is being asked to immediately self-isolate and call NSW Health.

As the list of exposure sites grows, so too do the calls for all of Greater Sydney to be placed into lockdown.

RELATED: Dozens more venues, transport routes added to Sydney's exposure list

However, Ms Berejiklian remains defiant the current measure will be enough to control the outbreak, which has grown to 70.

So far, only one of those cases remains unconnected, while 65 cases have been linked to Bondi cluster at the centre of the outbreak.

The single unlinked coronavirus case in Sydney in the past week is a nine-year-old boy from Waverley.

"Because this is a contagious strain, we anticipate that close to 100 per cent of everybody in a household is likely to get the virus if one person has had positive test results," Ms Berejiklian said.

It's expected that earlier restrictions announced for Greater Sydney, such as the requirement of wearing masks on public transport, will be extended.

Former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin learns his sentence on Friday (Saturday morning AEST) for murder in George Floyd's death, closing a chapter in a case that sparked global outrage and a reckoning on racial disparities in America.

Chauvin, 45, faces decades in prison, with several legal experts predicting a sentence of 20 to 25 years. Though Chauvin is widely expected to appeal, he also still faces trial on federal civil rights charges, along with three other fired officers who have yet to have their state trials.

The concrete barricades, razor wire and National Guard patrols that shrouded the county courthouse for Chauvin's three-week trial are gone, and so is most of the tension in the city as it awaited a verdict in April. Still, there's a recognition that Chauvin's sentencing will be another major step forward for a city that has been on edge since Floyd's death on May 25, 2020.

"Between the incident, the video, the riots, the trial — this is the pinnacle of it," Mike Brandt, a local defence attorney who has closely followed Chauvin's case, said. "The verdict was huge too, but this is where the justice comes down."

Chauvin was convicted of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter for pressing his knee against Floyd's neck for about 9 1/2 minutes as the Black man said he couldn't breathe and went limp. Bystander video of Floyd's arrest for suspicion of passing a counterfeit $20 bill prompted protests around the world and a nationwide reckoning on race and police brutality.

Under Minnesota statutes, Chauvin will be sentenced only on the most serious charge, which has a maximum sentence of 40 years. But case law dictates that a 30-year sentence would be the practical maximum sentence Judge Peter Cahill could impose without risk of being overturned on appeal.

Prosecutors asked for 30 years, saying Chauvin's actions were egregious and "shocked the nation's conscience." Defence attorney Eric Nelson requested probation, saying Chauvin was the product of a "broken" system and "believed he was doing his job."

Cahill has already found that aggravating factors in Floyd's death warrant going higher than the 12 1/2-year sentence recommended by the state's sentencing guidelines. The judge found Chauvin abused his position of authority, treated Floyd with particular cruelty, and that the crime was seen by several children. He also wrote that Chauvin knew the restraint of Floyd was dangerous.

"The prolonged use of this technique was particularly egregious in that George Floyd made it clear he was unable to breathe and expressed the view that he was dying as a result of the officers' restraint," Cahill wrote last month.

Attorneys on both sides are expected to make brief arguments Friday, and victims or family members of victims can make statements. No family members have said publicly that they will speak.

Chauvin can also make a statement, but it's not clear if he will. Experts say it could be tricky for Chauvin to talk without implicating himself in the pending federal case accusing him of violating Floyd's civil rights.

Chauvin chose not to testify at his trial. The only explanation the public has heard from him came from body-camera footage in which he told a bystander at the scene: "We got to control this guy 'cause he's a sizeable guy … and it looks like he's probably on something."

Several experts said they doubted Chauvin would take the risk and speak, but Brandt thought he would. He said Chauvin could say a few words without getting himself into legal trouble.

"I think it's his chance to tell the world, 'I didn't intend to kill him,'" Brandt said. "If I was him, I think I would want to try and let people know that I'm not a monster."

Several people interviewed in Minneapolis days before Chauvin's sentencing said they want to see a tough sentence.

Thirty years "doesn't seem like long enough to me," said Andrew Harer, a retail worker who is white. "I would be fine if he was in jail for the rest of his life."

Joseph Allen, 31, who is Black, said he thinks Chauvin should receive "at least" 30 years, and said he'd prefer a life sentence. He cited nearly 20 complaints filed against the now-fired officer during his career.

Allen said he hopes other police officers can learn "not to do what Derek Chauvin did."

Nekima Levy Armstrong, a civil rights attorney and activist, called for Chauvin to be sentenced "to the fullest extent of the law." She called Floyd's death "a modern day lynching" and predicted community outrage if Chauvin is sentenced lightly.

When asked if she would like to hear Chauvin speak, Levy Armstrong said: "For me as a Black woman living in this community, there's really nothing that he could say that would alleviate the pain and trauma that he caused … I think that if he spoke it would be disingenuous and could cause more trauma."

No matter what sentence Chauvin gets, he's likely to serve only about two-thirds behind bars presuming good behaviour. The rest would be on supervised release.

He's been held since his conviction at the state's only maximum security prison, in Oak Park Heights. The former officer is held away from the general population for his safety, in a 10-by-10-foot cell, with meals brought to his room. He is allowed out for solitary exercise for an hour a day.

It's not clear if Chauvin will remain there. State prisons officials said that decision wouldn't be made until after Cahill's formal sentencing order.

Chauvin and the three other officers involved in Floyd's arrest are awaiting trial in federal court on charges of violating Floyd's civil rights. No trial date has been set.

The three other officers are also scheduled for trial in March on state charges of aiding and abetting both murder and manslaughter.