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Security footage from inside Florida condo captures moments just before collapse as debris rains and building groans
Image source: Twitter video screenshot

Security footage from inside Florida condo captures moments just before collapse as debris rains and building groans

A resident of Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Florida, shared video footage from inside her condominium just moments before a portion of the building collapsed.

At the time of this reporting, at least four people are dead as a result of the horrific accident, and officials worry that 159 missing people — who were believed to be inside the building at the time of its collapse — are dead.

What are the details?

Rosie Santana, owner of a condominium in the Surfside-area complex, shared video footage of the moments leading up to the building crumbling 12 stories to the ground below.

Santana, who was not in the apartment at the time of its collapse, shared the black and white home security footage to her Twitter feed and captioned it, "I am a resident of one of the condos on the side of the collapse. This is a video from my camera footage inside from the start of the collapse until the lose [sic] of connection (I was away from the building today). Towards the end, you hear the structure failing."

In the video, debris can be seen raining down outside of what appears to be her living room. Ominous shaking and rumbling can soon be heard, and a television box, which is leaning up against a wall in the room, slips as the debris showers even heavier down around the room.

Before the 12-second video cuts, a deep groaning emits from the building just before it crumbles to the ground 12 stories below.

What else?

According to a Thursday report from the New York Post, the Champlain Towers South building had reportedly been sinking at a rate of 2 millimeters per year since at least the 1990s.

The building was also undergoing a structural inspection at the time of its deadly collapse.

The information was divulged in a 2020 study conducted by Shimon Wdowinski, a professor at Florida International University.

"Wdowinski's research focused on which parts of Miami were sinking in an effort to determine what areas could be most impacted by sea-level rise and coastal flooding," the Post reported. "His team found that the Champlain Towers South in Surfside had been sinking at a rate of about 2 millimeters a year in the 1990s, the report said."

Wdowinski told USA Today on Thursday, "We saw this building had some kind of unusual movement," but pointed out that researchers didn't place too much emphasis on the finding, considering the study was focusing on flooding hazards and not engineering concerns.

He added that he did not believe anyone in the city or state government was aware of the study, its findings, or one-line mention of the building in the 2020 study.

"Surfside town officials on Thursday said the high-rise had been undergoing a county-mandated 40-year recertification process, which involves electrical and structural inspections," the Post added.

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