Miami Condo Collapse

In the pre-dawn hours of June 24, part of the Champlain Towers South condo building in Surfside, Fla., suddenly collapsed.

Video of the building's collapse showed floor after floor crumbling in an instant, creating a massive pile of rubble.

"The building has literally pancaked," said Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett shortly after the collapse.

Less than a week later, the death toll has reached 11, with another 150 people unaccounted for.

Rescuers sifting through the debris of a collapsed Florida condo building continued their meticulous work Monday as town officials held on to hope of finding survivors in the rubble.

The death toll from the collapse rose to 10 after first responders pulled a body from the site Monday, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said. Four were pulled from the rubble Sunday. Levine Cava said 151 people remain unaccounted for. 

Hey, you. Yes, you. The one with his hands arched above the keyboard, debating whether to press “Send” on your Surfside hot take. Don’t. Delete it, step away from the computer, go outside for a while, and reflect upon what you’ve become.

When I saw Thursday morning that a condominium building had partially collapsed near Miami Beach, the first question I had wasn’t if anyone had died (that was second), but to wonder why the building had collapsed in the first place. Really, it was to wonder if a building collapsing in Miami would be investigated as a potentially climate change–related disaster.

Before signing a bill Friday designating the Pulse nightclub as a national memorial, President Joe Biden paused to first offer solace to those affected by the building collapse in Miami earlier this week.

Biden, who spoke from a signing table surrounded by some of the Pulse nightclub survivors, acknowledged the common bonds of grief they all shared.

Nearly 100 people were unaccounted for Thursday after a high-rise condo building partially collapsed near Miami Beach, leaving at least one person dead and 10 injured, officials said.

Authorities got a call about the collapse at the 12-story building in Surfside, a town in Florida's Miami-Dade County, around 1:30 a.m. ET, officials said.

Raide Jadallah, the assistant chief of operations for Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, said that of the building's 136 units, 55 in the northeast corridor collapsed.

A portion of a condo tower in the Miami-area beachfront town of Surfside, Fla., collapsed. Rescue authorities responded to a call at about 1:30 a.m. Thursday and found the northeast section of the 12-story, 136-unit Champlain Towers South building had collapsed, said Ray Jadallah, chief of operations at Miami-Dade Fire Rescue.

Officials said it was too soon to determine the cause of the collapse. “Buildings just don’t fall down in America, they just don’t,” said Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett in an interview.

Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday declared a state of emergency in Miami-Dade County after the Champlain Towers South apartment building collapsed in Surfside.

County Mayor Daniella Levine had also declared a state of emergency and asked the governor do the same in order to receive streamlined state resources for the recovery effort, which was still underway as of Thursday evening, hours after the collapse.

At least one person was killed and at least 10 others injured when a 12-story apartment building near Miami partially collapsed and “pancaked” early Thursday, prompting a massive search-and-rescue effort — with 99 people still unaccounted for, officials said.

The ocean-facing portion of the 136-unit Champlain Towers South Condo on Collins Avenue in Surfside, just north of Miami Beach, collapsed about 1:30 a.m., leaving a mountain of rubble and trapping residents asleep in their beds inside.