Harrowing Condo Collapse Near Miami Prompts Frantic Search for Survivors

One person was confirmed dead and 99 were unaccounted for after a condo building suddenly collapsed in the middle of the night.

SURFSIDE, Fla. — The rumble that awoke people inside the Champlain Towers condo complex just north of Miami Beach after midnight on Thursday sounded like thunder, another summer storm rolling in. It was, horrifyingly, the collapse of half the building, which proceeded to pancake into the ground as if struck by an earthquake. Residents like Barry Cohen, 63, and his wife had to be rescued from their balcony in a cherry picker in the dark. The light of day revealed utter devastation: a beachfront high-rise with its insides turned out as some of the most elite search-and-rescue crews in the country tried to find signs of life in a heap of dusty rubble that appeared unsurvivable. “I was screaming to them, ‘Get us out of here!’” Mr. Cohen, a lawyer, recalled.