re: Conspiracy theory re: Surfside collapse

An older building with structural issues wouldn’t fall like that. There would have been far more clues that the building was failing than the few pointed out in the 2020 report.

That building fell into a void. Only question is, what caused the void?

Larger buildings tend to go down in the ground, and the weight of the building -live plus dead load - determined (In part) how much ground is removed to place the building. The engineers know that the soil beneath the dig can support the weight of the building, in part because the soil underneath the dig was already supporting the building weight.

The collapse looks like the soil beneath the building was removed by either a sinkhole or a series of washes. The debris field is mostly below ground level.