On June 24, 2021, at approximately 1:22 a.m. EDT,[a] Champlain Towers South, a 12-story beachfront condominium in the Miami suburb of Surfside, Florida, United States, partially collapsed, causing the deaths of 98 people.

[69] Members of Hatzalah of South Florida, a Jewish faith-based ambulance service which was authorized to transport patients as part of a law signed the previous week in Surfside,[70] were among the first to respond, setting up an onsite triage station.

[84] Florida officials announced that THOR, a 1,000 sq ft (93 m2) mobile command center, was being deployed from Escambia County to help coordinate teams and operations.

[102][103] On July 1, search and rescue efforts were halted at the site at approximately 2:00 a.m. due to concerns that the western portion of the structure, which had not collapsed, was increasingly likely to do so, creating unsafe conditions for workers.

[104] President Biden visited the site after meeting with Governor DeSantis, Mayor Levine Cava, other elected leaders, and uniformed first responders in a conference room at the nearby St. Regis Bal Harbour resort.

[105] Concern also mounted that Tropical Storm Elsa could make landfall in south Florida, further destabilizing the standing portion of the structure and the debris field and interfering with rescue operations.

"[109] Due to the large influx of search and rescue personnel, officials, and investigators from around the country and outside the US, and a resulting shortage of hotel rooms, accommodations were being provided to some workers on a cruise ship, Royal Caribbean Group's Explorer of the Seas, docked at PortMiami.

[130] In the late afternoon, officials announced that an additional 12 bodies had been located since the search resumed after the demolition of the western portion of the structure on Sunday, including 4 on Tuesday.

Miami-Dade Fire Chief Jadallah said that families of 32 of the victims have been notified, and stated that "we haven't transitioned" to a purely recovery operation, as would occur when rescue of additional survivors was deemed no longer possible.

[1] Tropical Storm Elsa weakened and made landfall significantly north and west of Miami, greatly reducing its impact on the ongoing operations at the site versus earlier predictions.

[151][152] It also led to the closure of the historic Miami-Dade County Courthouse on July 9 after an engineer reported "safety concerns with various floors"; staff members were directed to work remotely.

[153][154] The town of Surfside announced on June 27 it had contracted with Allyn Kilsheimer, founder and chief executive of KCE Structural Engineers, to study the partial collapse of the Champlain Towers South, assess the condition of adjacent and similar buildings, and provide geotechnical and original-design evaluations.

[155] Surfside mayor Charles Burkett said that the town government would locate every document, including all correspondence sent or received, related to the Champlain Towers South building and post it on its web site in the interest of public transparency.

[156] On July 5, The New York Times published an in-depth report saying that the collapse of Champlain Towers South prompted a review of hundreds of older high-rises in southeast Florida, as the management of other buildings "ignored or delayed action on serious maintenance issues".

Other Independence Day events were canceled in the metro Miami area, both to show respect to those affected by the collapse and to avoid worsening an already bad traffic situation because of road closures and detours associated with rescue efforts in Surfside.

Additional debris, including concrete, personal belongings, and damaged cars from the parking garage, was transported to an empty field near the interchange of Interstate 95 and Florida's Turnpike (SR 91), approximately 10 miles (16 km) from the building collapse.

[167] On June 24, 2021, the day of the collapse, a lawsuit was filed in Miami Dade Circuit Court by a resident of the building against the Champlain Towers South Condominium Association, seeking $5 million in damages "due to defendant's acts and omissions and their failure to properly protect the lives and property of plaintiff and class members".

[168] On July 2, the Champlain Towers South condominium board issued a statement to the press following a judge's decision[169] directing a receiver to release emergency assistance funds to residents of the building.

The full statement read: The surviving members of the Champlain Towers South Condominium Association board have concluded that, in the best interest of all concerned parties, an independent Receiver should be appointed to oversee the legal and claims process.

We know that answers will take time as part of a comprehensive investigation and we will continue to work with city, state, local, and federal officials in their rescue efforts, and to understand the causes of this tragedy.

[174] The trial court denied motions to dismiss this class action complaint, and it was amended again on March 10, 2022, to add Stantec Architecture Inc.; Geosonics, Inc.; Florida Civil, Inc.; and 8701 Collins Avenue Condominium Association, Inc., as additional defendants.

[176] Roughly half the settlement amount came from a single company, Securitas AB, that was never named in the lawsuit, in relation to the on-duty security guard not triggering a building-wide alarm before she exited the building.

The ceiling slabs of the parking garage, which sat below the pool deck, showed several sizable cracks and cases of exposed reinforcing bar or rebar from spalling.

[186] In addition to the freshwater infiltrations from the defectively constructed pool deck, a maintenance manager had reported a possible excessive ingress of salt water, which can cause more aggressive spalling.

[188] On June 30, WLS-TV in Chicago publicized a bystander's video of water pouring into the parking garage from above near its entrance, and apparent concrete rubble lying on the floor, reportedly taken at 1:18 a.m., seven minutes before the north-central portion of the building collapsed.

The report cautioned that some may have been dislodged in the collapse, and that reduction of rebar alone would not necessarily cause failure because steel requirements can change during the construction process, and designs often specify more than is strictly needed as a safety precaution.

[13][14][15] Distinct from possible construction defects, an analysis of European Remote-Sensing Satellite data by Florida International University indicates that the building had been sinking during the 1990s at a significant rate of about two mm (0.079 in) per year.

This included: The Florida Legislature passed condo reform legislation in a May 2022 special session as Senate Bill 4-D, addressing issues highlighted in the aftermath of the Surfside collapse.

The inspection records must be posted online and shared with tenants, and condo associations will no longer be able to waive the requirement that they keep a reserve fund large enough to maintain the structural integrity of the building.

CIAPR Earthquake Commission president Félix L. Rivera cited concerns that "many buildings [in Puerto Rico] are built on sandy terrain, in the maritime-land zone, exposed to water and corrosion.