Poor maintenance, structure settling, climate change: engineer explores potential causes of Miami building collapse

Record ID: 1623212

  • Title: Poor maintenance, structure settling, climate change: engineer explores potential causes of Miami building collapse
  • Date: 25th June 2021
  • Summary: BURLINGTON, VERMONT, UNITED STATES (JUNE 25, 2021) (REUTERS VIA ZOOM) (SOUNDBITE) (English) MATTHYS LEVY, STRUCTURAL ENGINEER AND AUTHOR, SAYING: "Maintenance, obviously, is an issue. The building is 40 years old and I don't know how well maintained it was all these years. Also, the fact that being a 40-year-old building meant that by the rules in Miami, it was supposed to be inspected. Now, I don't know if that inspection had actually taken place or not."
  • Embargoed: 9th July 2021 21:36
  • Keywords: Matthys Levy Miami building collapse Surfside condo collapse
  • Location: SURFSIDE, FLORIDA + BURLINGTON, VERMONT, UNITED STATES
  • City: SURFSIDE, FLORIDA + BURLINGTON, VERMONT, UNITED STATES
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Disaster/Accidents,United States
  • Reuters ID: LVA006EIWI7UV
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Families and friends of the 159 people missing after the collapse of a condo building in a Miami suburb were clinging to hope on Friday (June 25), as rescue workers sifted through a mountain of debris for signs of life, having found four dead so far.
    Video captured by a security camera nearby showed an entire side of the building suddenly folding in two sections, one after the other, at about 1:30 a.m. (0530 GMT) on Thursday, throwing up clouds of dust.
    What caused the 40-year-old high-rise to cave in was not immediately known, although local officials said the 12-story tower was undergoing roof construction and other repairs.
    Matthys Levy (pronounced Matisse Lee-vee) is a retired structural engineer. He is also an author and wrote the book 'Why Buildings Fall Down: How Structures Fail'.
    He told Reuters that clues to what caused the collapse could be found in the building's foundation.
    "The bottom failed somewhere and the whole building pancaked down. So one should look at what happened, what the condition was of the material at the bottom of the building. And that will only be discovered once they start looking at the wreckage."
    Levy added that climate change could have played a role.
    "Because of rising sea levels, saltwater could have intruded into the foundation of the building," he said.
    "The foundation, I assume, was concrete, reinforced concrete, which means that saltwater would attack the concrete and especially attack the reinforcing rods in the concrete and caused them to rust and then caused them to pop out. Which would lead to some kind of failure."
    Satellite data from the 1990s showed the building was sinking about 1mm to 3mm per year while surrounding buildings remained stable, said Florida International University professor Shimon Wdowinski.
    "Either the building is settling into the soil or maybe there is some compromise with the structure, a compromise within the building. We cannot really say," he said in a telephone interview.
    Officials said the complex, built in 1981, was going through a recertification process requiring repairs, with another building under construction on an adjacent site.
    The Champlain Towers South had more than 130 units, about 80 of which were occupied. It had been subject to various inspections recently due to the recertification process and the adjacent building construction, Surfside Commissioner Charles Kesl told Miami television station WPLG Local 10.
    (Production: Angela Moore)
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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