On Thursday, June 24, 2021, at approximately 1:25a.m. Champlain Towers South, a 12-story beachfront condominium in the Miami suburb of Surfside, Florida, United States, partially collapsed. Ninety-eight people died.
Four people were rescued from the rubble, but one died of injuries shortly after arriving at the hospital.Eleven others were injured. Approximately 35 were rescued the same day from the uncollapsed portion of the building, which was demolished 10 days later.
The main contributing factor under investigation is long-term degradation of reinforced concrete structural support in the ground-level parking garage under the housing units, 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, although no main structural work had been undertaken. Other possible factors include land subsidence, insufficient reinforcing steel, and corruption during construction.
The Surfside collapse is tied with the Knickerbocker Theatre collapse as the third-deadliest structural engineering failure in United States history, behind the Hyatt Regency walkway collapse and the collapse of the Pemberton Mill.