Florida Champlain towers building collapse: 98 dead
Champlain towers
98 people confirmed to have died in early morning disaster.
An engineer's report from 2018, which was made public, highlighted "a major error" in the original design of the 12-storey seafront Champlain Towers. It said the fault prevented water draining away from the base of the building.
Approximately 35 were rescued the same day from the un-collapsed portion of the building,which was demolished ten days later.
A contributing factor under investigation is long-term degradation of reinforced concrete structural support in the basement-level parking garage under the pool deck, due to water penetration and corrosion of the reinforcing steel.
The problems had been reported in 2018 and noted as "much worse" in April 2021. A $15 million program of remedial works had been approved before the collapse, but the main structural work had not started. Other possible factors include land subsidence, insufficient reinforcing steel, and corruption during construction.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is investigating almost two dozen potential causes for the collapse. It is likely they will determine several factors happened simultaneously to cause the collapse.
The Surfside collapse is tied with the Knickerbocker Theatre collapse as the third-deadliest non-deliberate structural engineering failure in United States history, behind the Hyatt Regency walkway collapse and the collapse of the Pemberton Mill.
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Sources: bbc.co.uk
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