Status: 05/12/2022 07:19 a.m
Almost a year ago, a 12-story apartment building in Surfside, Florida, collapsed, killing 98. The survivors and their relatives are now to receive a total of around one billion US dollars in compensation.
After the collapse of a high-rise apartment building in the US state of Florida last June, the survivors and victims’ relatives are to receive around one billion dollars in compensation. A victim’s lawyer told AFP news agency that an agreement was reached for $997 million in compensation for those affected. Lawyer Carlos Silva also announced that another $100 million could be added to this sum.
Judge Michael Hanzman, who is responsible for the civil proceedings, described the agreement reached as “fantastic”, according to the “New York Times”. The amount of compensation was “much higher than what I expected”.
Cause of accident still unknown
The 12-story Champlain Towers South residential building in Surfside, north of Miami Beach, partially collapsed on the night of June 24. 98 people died in the disaster. The exact cause of the accident is still unknown. As early as 2018, an expert report had found “major structural damage” to the building, which was completed in 1981.
The civil lawsuit was directed, among other things, against a construction company that had erected a building next to the collapsed residential high-rise. In the lawsuit, vibrations during the construction work are partly responsible for the accident.