The partially collapsed building in Miami Beach has been demolished

Sunday evening was the Surfside Building which was last June 24 partially collapsed It was demolished by controlled detonation, to avoid the danger of giving way to other parts of the structure Because of the tropical storm It’s called Elsa, and it’s expected to arrive these days on the west coast of Florida. To allow for the controlled demolition, rescue operations for people trapped in the rubble were suspended on Saturday afternoon: at the moment 24 people are confirmed dead and 121 are missing.

Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniela Cava Levine said Sunday morning that searches will resume shortly after the demolition, once the site has been declared safe to operate again.

The doomed demolition Occurs shortly after 10:30 pm on Sunday (local time): it caused the building to collapse within seconds, without causing damage to surrounding buildings. There was no need to evacuate nearby buildings, but residents were advised to stay indoors and not use air conditioners to avoid spreading dust and other polluting particles from the debris.

The demolition was originally scheduled for late July, but the arrival of Tropical Storm Elsa, which battered Cuba with strong winds on Sunday, changed plans. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said demolition was the only option: “After all, this building is not safe enough for people to re-enter,” DeSantis noted. according to The New York Times.

Official celebrations of July 4, Independence Day, are canceled on Sunday in Miami Beach. On Friday, residents of another 156 apartment building in North Miami Beach, a few miles northwest of Surfside – part of the Crestview Towers apartment building – were evacuated shortly after a team of engineers discovered significant damage to the buildings. Concrete structures and electrical problems inside the building.

The partially collapsed Surfside building on Thursday, June 24th was part of the Champlain Towers condominium: it was built in 1981 and houses 136 apartments mainly inhabited by retirees and wealthy families. Although it may take months to elucidate the causes of the collapse, engineers and experts have begun to make some assumptions, in particular related to the level of building erosion and degradation, mainly due to ocean salt.

last Saturday The New York Times mushroom Data from a 2018 survey that noted “significant structural damage” to the concrete slab located under the swimming pool outside the building, and “abundant” cracks and collapses in columns, beams and walls in the underground car park. In the assessment, which was used to create a substantive plan for the interventions that were supposed to start soon, there was no indication of a possible collapse, but it was emphasized that the building needed timely maintenance in order to “maintain its structural integrity”.

Allen E. said: Kilsheimer, the engineer who is investigating the collapse on behalf of Surfside management, said it was still too early to say whether there were really any construction defects. However, it is possible that the Surfside building was constructed to less stringent safety standards than current standards and also compared to those of buildings a short time later: in fact, in its years of construction, Florida modernized these standards, increasing the number of steel bars needed to reinforce concrete structures.