Geologist: Collapsed Florida condo was shifting since the 90s

• Geologist Shimon Wdowinski said that the condo that partially collapsed on Thursday had been showing movement since the 1990s.
• He said that a study conducted in the ’90s showed that the particular building was moving between 1993 and 1999.
• He added that the movement was not attributed to the area but the building itself.

The Champlain Towers South Condo in Miami-Dade, Florida partially collapsed in Surfside town on Thursday early morning. According to a geologist from Florida International University, the 12-story beachfront condo building has been shifting since the 1990s, NBC South Florida reported.

Dr. Shimon Wdowinski, an associate professor of Earth and Environment, said that data collected in the ’90s showed that the “building was moving between ’93 and ’99.” He added that they recorded the movement since it was an unexpected occurrence in that part of the city.

Wdowinski’s staff biography at FIU noted that his research is focused on the development and usage of space geodetic techniques to precisely detect small movements of the Earth’s surface.

He told NBC South Florida that they noticed movement on the west part of the city, which could be attributed to a few different reasons.

“That particular building moved. It can be for different reasons. It can be because the foundation moved downward,” he stated. “It’s very localized, and we suspected it was something with the building itself and not the entire area.”

The building was built on reclaimed wetlands in the southeast corner of Surfside back in 1981. But according to Wdowinski, the area that the condo was built on was not sinking and was “pretty stable land.”

He stated, “I think the issue is with the building itself. The situation is very unique to that building.”

Wdowinski emphasized that movement has been detected “in the study 20 to 30 years ago,” meaning that “it’s not something that happened yesterday, it’s been going on for a long period of time.”

Authorities have reported at least one death and 99 still missing as of Thursday afternoon. Crews had been searching through the rubble for any survivors.

One of the survivors said that he had raised concerns about nearby construction and its potential damage to the building several years ago.

The study was aimed to detect issues such as changes in sea-level rise, and the results were reported to the respective committee.

Source: WFLA