Condo building collapses in Miami

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Psycho_X

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Talk about a worst nightmare. Sleeping and suddenly your building collapses around you. Terrifying. Wonder if it was structural issues or a sinkhole possibly? Saying up to 90 people may have been or still are trapped as it was full.

Florida building collapse updates: At least 1 dead, several injured

Florida building collapse updates: At least 1 dead, several injured
MORGAN WINSOR and JON HAWORTH
Thu, June 24, 2021, 7:45 AM
At least one person is dead and several others are injured after a multi-story building partially collapsed in southern Florida's Miami-Dade County early Thursday morning, authorities said.

The residential building is located in the small, beachside town of Surfside, about 6 miles north of Miami Beach. A massive search and rescue operation was underway before dawn, as crews carefully checked the wreckage and remaining structure for survivors. Footage from the scene showed firefighters pulling a boy from the rubble alive and rescuing other people from still-standing balconies.

Witnesses told Miami ABC affiliate WPLG that more people are still trapped inside the building.

Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett told reporters that at least 10 people were treated for injuries on site. Two of them were then transported to a local hospital, where one died, according to Burkett. Both the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue and the Miami-Dade Police Department also confirmed there was at least one fatality as a result of the building collapse.

Aventura Hospital and Medical Center, about 8 miles northwest of Surfside, has received three patients from the scene so far. Two have critical injuries while the third is in fair condition, a hospital spokesperson told ABC News.

The condominium, which was built in the 1980s, has over 100 apartment units and was believed to be substantially full when a third of it collapsed in the early morning hours, according to Burkett. The building was undergoing roof work, the mayor said.

Some 15 families walked out of the building alive on their own and were put up in a local hotel, according to Burkett. Search dogs did an initial pass around the wreckage when it was still dark but there were no signs of survivors at that time, the mayor said.

The Miami-Dade Fire Rescue said it has sent more than 80 units to the scene. Meanwhile, multiple police and fire departments from across Miami-Dade County have been deployed to assist, according to the Miami Beach Police Department.

One witness told ABC News that his wife cares for an elderly woman who lives in the condominium and frantically called him around 1:15 a.m. local time, after the units next door came crashing down. He said his wife and the elderly woman were both rescued.

People in neighboring buildings have been evacuated to a nearby recreational center, another witness told ABC News.

Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava took to Twitter to express her gratitude for the first responders on scene of "this horrific tragedy."

"May they stay safe while working to save lives," Levine Cava said.

The cause of the partial collapse was unknown. The Miami-Dade Police Department said it is investigating the incident.

ABC News' Kendall Coughlin, Victor Oquendo and Rachel Katz contributed to this report.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Florida building collapse updates: At least 1 dead, several injured originally appeared on abcnews.go.com


View: https://twitter.com/BoldlyBuilding2/status/1408042613194821638?s=20


View: https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1408018816483930117?s=20
 

Psycho_X

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Makes me shudder just thinking about being in that bed when it happened.
1624541564909.png
 

snackdaddy

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I could it in a 3rd world country. But its hard to believe a building like that could just collapse in this country. Scary to think about it.
 

Selassie I

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Scary shit. It will be very interesting to learn the cause.
 

AvengerRam

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I used to live about 20 minutes from there!

I wouldn't think it would be a sinkhole that close to the beach.

Scary.
 

snackdaddy

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I used to live about 20 minutes from there!

I wouldn't think it would be a sinkhole that close to the beach.

Scary.

I hear sink holes are not that uncommon in Florida. Here in the San Joaquin Valley we could have sink holes soon if the water levels continue to drop. Farmers are drilling deeper for water its causing the ground to sink as much as 12 feet in some areas.
 

AvengerRam

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I hear sink holes are not that uncommon in Florida. Here in the San Joaquin Valley we could have sink holes soon if the water levels continue to drop. Farmers are drilling deeper for water its causing the ground to sink as much as 12 feet in some areas.
Oh, we definitely have sink holes in Florida. They're just not usually found so close to the beach.
 

snackdaddy

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Oh, we definitely have sink holes in Florida. They're just not usually found so close to the beach.

It will be interesting to see what the cause was. If it was human error someone will be in big trouble. Especially if they cut corners. I'd hate to be the inspector on this one.
 

Psycho_X

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It will be interesting to see what the cause was. If it was human error someone will be in big trouble. Especially if they cut corners. I'd hate to be the inspector on this one.

Is curious what did it. The building is 40 years old though so probably no one to hold responsible for it if it was a fault at construction. They mentioned there was roof repair happening on it but I'm not sure how that could cause it unless the added weight of equipment caused it. But that would go back to a structural thing though and not the roofers since they take the same stuff up to all buildings they work on I'd think. Who knows, will be interesting. And if it is found to be a structural defect you have to wonder how many buildings in the area were made by the same people at the same time.
 

RamFan503

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Just amazing. I hope the death toll is low but I suspect this will be a developing story. I would suspect a sink hole or something similar but there will be a lot of building inspections going on and for obvious reasons. Just awful.
 

Force16X

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went down like a perfect demolition without all the noise...............
 

Psycho_X

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went down like a perfect demolition without all the noise...............

Yeah it was very clean how straight down it went which leads me to ground movement somewhere. Maybe not a sink hole per say but just excessive settling in the middle of the structure maybe. The ease at which that pancaked downward with no tipping or falling over is a tell I'd say... in my expert, amateur internet opinion.
 

Selassie I

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I read an article on this earlier from a writer who interviewed an older lady who was in the building when this happened. She said that right before the collapse, she heard a very loud explosion.
 

bluecoconuts

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4 dead and 159 still missing. My guess is by the end of it most of those 159 died as well.

Apparently in 2018 an inspector reported that there was a failure to properly waterproof the pool deck in the near future would cause major structural damage, so that sounds like a big factor.
 

Psycho_X

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4 dead and 159 still missing. My guess is by the end of it most of those 159 died as well.

Apparently in 2018 an inspector reported that there was a failure to properly waterproof the pool deck in the near future would cause major structural damage, so that sounds like a big factor.
Sounds like that is a big contributing factor among general derelict of fixing issues over the years. An inspection years ago showed the pool foundation wasn't put in at a slope so water pooled underneath the foundation of the pool and probably the building which would compromise the foundation over time. And now reading about a husband who was on the phone with his wife who described the pool falling into the ground right before he heard her scream and then nothing. Can't imagine that. Either way, sounds like the current building owners need jail time for this shit.

A woman stood on the balcony of her fourth-floor apartment as the Florida condominium collapsed told her husband on the phone that she could see the pool "caving in" seconds before the line went dead, Sky News reported.

Cassie Straton was speaking to her husband, Michael, from their balcony on the south side of the Champlain Towers when she noticed the building started shaking in the early hours of Thursday, her older sister Ashely Dean said.

"Suddenly she says, 'honey, the pool is caving in. The pool is sinking to the ground,'" Dean said, according to Sky News.

"He said, 'what are you talking about?' And she says, 'the ground is shaking, everything's shaking' and then she screamed a blood-curdling scream and the line went dead," Dean added.


Straton is among the 159 apartment residents who are still unaccounted for as of Saturday, the BBC reported.

The official death toll currently stands at four people.

"We've never been able to see her again because she's in there. She's trapped in there," Dean told Sky News. "I have to be realistic; my baby is gone, my baby sister is gone."

Dean said that her sister had reportedly been complaining about the state of the apartment for months.

"My sister told me about all kinds of water leaks and people on her roof with heavy equipment," she said.

The condo was the subject of a 2015 maintenance suit by resident Matilde Fainstein, who said the building's owners "failed to repair or negligently repaired the common elements and the outside walls of the building," according to court documents seen by Insider.

It's unclear if the issues indicated there affected the collapse.
 

snackdaddy

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Heads are gonna roll when this is all said and done. Whoever owns this place probably won't have the money to pay the kind of lawsuits that will be coming. How can something like this happen in this country? We have plenty enough to worry about but we shouldn't be worried about a building collapsing.