Just before 2am US Eastern Daylight Time on June 24, the Champlain Towers South Tower in Surfside, South Florida, partially collapsed.
The 12-storey building with 136 apartments was built in 1981 on reclaimed wetlands. More than 55 apartments have been destroyed. At least one person is confirmed dead — with some reports claiming three — and about 100 people remain unaccounted for. Many others have been injured.
It’s unclear at this stage why the building collapsed, but it has been speculated that it had been sinking over time, which may have contributed to the collapse. It’s likely the actual cause of the collapse won’t be known for months, if ever.
However, it is important to find out exactly what happened, and what it might mean for similar buildings in Miami and around the world.
There’s no reason for this building to go down like that unless someone literally pulls out the supports from underneath or they get washed out or there’s a sinkhole or something like that, because it just went down.
Video footage suggests the building experienced a progressive collapse. This happens when there is failure of a primary structural element, which then causes failure of adjoining members. For example, if one floor can’t support the floors above it, those floors collapse and “pancake” the floors below.
While such apartment buildings are designed to carry heavy loads under normal static conditions, they provide little resistance against dynamic moving masses — such as an upper section pancaking a section below.
The Miami building’s progressive collapse is a similar effect to that witnessed on September 11, 2001, when fires inside the World Trade Centre twin towers weakened the buildings’ structure and triggered a progressive collapse. However, in the case of the recent collapse, there was no evidence of a fire.
Potential causes
While the cause of the disaster isn’t immediately clear, some explanations are more likely than others for this type of collapse.
It has been reported the building, which was constructed on reclaimed wetlands, was sinking. Building on unstable land could have caused damage to the foundations over time. When buildings experience lots of ground movement, large cracking can occur, causing structural damage.
There was also construction work ongoing nearby, and investigators will need to consider whether this could have disturbed the foundations. This nearby construction work could have created ground movement under nearby buildings due to vibrations or deep excavations work.
The recent work on the building’s roof will also have to be investigated, although it’s less likely this extra load would have caused the collapse. The building was also undergoing a 40-year recertification, as is required in Florida, and early media reports are that this process had not identified any major issue with the building.
Others may be at risk
The building foundation for such high-rises will typically rely on a type of “pile” foundation. Piles are essentially long, slender columns, made of materials such as concrete and steel, which transfer the load from the building deep into the ground.
If there was a reduction in the capacity of the soil to support these loads, such as in the event of a sinkhole, there would be nothing underpinning the building. Given the information that has emerged so far, it’s likely the sinking of the building over time may have been a key factor in its ultimate collapse.
Once the initial emergency search for survivors is completed, and the remaining part of the structure is deemed safe, attention will turn to what exactly caused the collapse. A range of experts (such as structural engineers) will be involved in this review.
In previous similar building collapses in the United States, the causes have typically been identified following investigations. For instance, in the case of one 2013 Philadelphia building accident, the catastrophe was attributed to the reckless and unsafe removal of structural supports during demolition work on a vacant building. This caused the vacant building to collapse onto a store, causing multiple deaths.
In the case of the Miami building, however, the exact cause may not be as easy to identify. The building had undergone several inspections during the ongoing recertification process, yet it appears imminent danger was not detected.
Investigating a building collapse typically takes months, and a full answer is sometimes never found. Right now in Miami, this process should be as rapid as possible, as nearby buildings may also be in danger.
For residents’ sake, the question of whether this incident was an isolated freak event will need to be answered quickly and comprehensively.
At least 99 people are unaccounted for after a building partially collapsed in Surfside, Florida, United States on Thursday.
Miami-Dade Police Departmentspokesperson Alvaro Zabaleta confirmed the development to Cable News Network.
One person was reported killed and at least 10 were injured in the overnight collapse.
Officials say rescue efforts are currently paused due to a thunderstorm in the area.
Emergency officials are also asking people to call 305-614-1819 if they have relatives who are unaccounted for.
Previous reports were that 51 people were unaccounted for in the incident at the Champlain Towers South condominiums.
According to State Fire Marshal Jimmy Patronis, tactical units working the collapsed building heard sounds from the rubble earlier today as they did search and rescue efforts.
Patronis said that rescuers heard an individual earlier today in the parking garage area that they are having difficulty getting to.
“The rescuers are hearing sounds from the rubble, it’s kind of hit or miss. You get into the zone where you are so passionate and so focused and so determined to make sure you are doing everything possible to save a life in an event like this,” he said.
Both Gordon Houlden and Wenran Jiang — former directors of the University of Alberta’s China Institute — have defended the importance of fostering a better understanding of China among Canadian policy-makers as well as the general public.
The Alberta government’s order is not in isolation. It was a direct response to a May 3 news report that criticized the University of Alberta’s extensive scientific collaboration with China.
Earlier this year, the federal government also issued a research security policy statement warning, while not naming China specifically, that “Canada’s world-class research, and its open and collaborative research environment, are increasingly targeted by espionage and foreign interference activities.”
This alarming trend not only negatively impacts Canada’s research and innovation system, but also stokes public hostility against scholars working on China-related subjects and creates difficulties for anyone having any kind of relationship with China. That includes, in particular, Canadians of Chinese descent and those seen as Asian in general, thereby fuelling the flames of anti-Asian racism in Canada.
Human knowledge is often created in isolation. Globalization and technological innovation have significantly lowered barriers in international mobility and communication. As a result, international research collaborations have become a norm for many disciplines.
“Science is an international, global endeavour, with ideas transcending borders and no country controlling the marketplace of ideas.”
Scholars collaborate internationally for a variety of reasons.
Collaboration involving multiple institutions is often a prerequisite for projects demanding expensive infrastructure. To scholars in humanities and social sciences, working with international colleagues brings valuable intercultural perspectives.
Scholars’ global mobility also affects the impact of their research. A 2017 peer-reviewed study published by Nature found that “limiting the circulation of scholars will damage the entire scientific system.”
Isolationism during COVID-19
Extensive collaborations among scientists, universities, biotech companies and pharmaceutical companies paved the way for the rapid development and clinical success of COVID-19 vaccines.
The Alberta government’s embrace of academic isolationism comes at a time when climate action demands concerted research efforts across borders. Alberta cited national security and intellectual property concerns in defence of its decision. But whether such concerns warrant cutting off all research ties with China requires a thorough examination instead of a unilateral order from the province’s Ministry of Advanced Education.
A recent Nature editorial argued that escalating geopolitical tensions should not diminish mutually beneficial exchanges of people and knowledge.
COVID-19 vaccine development presents a good case study illustrating the inherent limits of intellectual property rights. There is a growing worry that future research and development of mRNA technology may be impeded by legal barriers put in place by pharmaceutical companies due to the patents, trade secrets and know-how they own. This is why waiving patents on COVID-19 vaccines presents a crucial step toward ensuring access to them around the world.
Cold War mentality
Considering the timing of the Alberta government’s order, we can’t help but ask whether China is being used as as a bogeyman to invoke an ill-intentioned new Cold War mentality — a dangerous trend.
Besides irreversibly damaging valuable social ties that contribute to the vigour of the academic community, such anti-China measures will disproportionately threaten instructors and students of Chinese descent.
People attend a rally in Toronto opposing discrimination against Asian communities and to mourn the victims of a mass shooting in Atlanta.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young
If banning research ties with China is implemented at the federal level, for example, would Chinese-Canadian academics be obligated to impose continuous self-censorship when talking to family members and colleagues back in China? If so, this seems the dawning of a chilling new era of McCarthyism — a troubling period in American history that saw peoples’ lives destroyed in the 1950s due to false allegations they were communist sympathizers.
It’s rare to find public discussions that make a rational distinction between a state and its people in today’s polarized media environment. As shown in the return of “Yellow Peril” tropes incited by former U.S. president Donald Trump’s “China virus” rhetoric, propaganda use to amplify external threats directly contributes to the surge of xenophobia and hate crimes.
Systemic racism against Indigenous, Black and racialized communities has been ingrained in the Canadian socio-political system. Now more than ever, any policy that may lead to increased discrimination against racialized groups requires critical and thorough scrutiny.
For this reason, banning research ties with China should be vetoed not only by the academic community, but also the general public for its recklessness in fanning the flames of anti-Asian racism.
People attend a vigil to honour the memory of the four members of Muslim family that died in an attack on June 6, 2021. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh )
According to the Public Safety Canada 2018 Public Report on the Terrorist Threat to Canada, there have been 55 people charged with terrorism offences under the Criminal Code. A vast majority of them were charged with international terrorism offences inspired by al-Qaida or the Islamic State, not homegrown domestic attacks.
The addition of terrorism to the murder charges already being faced by the London truck attack suspect is indicative of a pattern of domestic extremists increasingly facing terrorism charges for their violent criminal acts.
At some point in the first eight days of the investigation, the joint local and federal investigative team was able to provide evidence to prosecutors making the case that the murders constituted terrorist activity. At that point, both federal and provincial prosecutors consented to adding terrorism charges to the multiple first-degree murder counts.
The London attack suspect appears in court to hear the additional terrorism charges.
On June 14, the suspect made a brief court appearance to have additional terrorism charges laid against him. From a practical perspective, if the alleged attacker is convicted under any one of the four first-degree murder charges, he will automatically face a life sentence with no parole for 25 years. The terrorism portion of the charges will not add jail time to what may already be a life sentence.
The investigation and legal manoeuvring has determined that the original first-degree murder charges can be now more accurately described as “murder — terrorist activity” per Sec. 231 (601) of the Criminal Code.
For the terrorism charges to be successfully prosecuted, being able to prove the motives of the attack becomes critical. In the June 14 news release outlining the terrorism charges, a key takeaway was the mention of Sec. 2, 83.01(1)(b) of the Criminal Code. That section, defining terrorist activity, reads in part:
“An act or omission, in or outside Canada, that is committed in whole or in part for a political, religious or ideological purpose, objective or cause, and in whole or in part with the intention of intimidating the public, or a segment of the public…”
The implication is that for terrorism charges to legally stick to the alleged London truck attacker, those portions of the case will hinge on the ability of the prosecution to prove that the motive for the attack is consistent with Canada’s definition of terrorist activity.
Important firsts in prosecuting terrorism
In February 2020, a machete attack at a Toronto massage parlour left one woman dead and two others wounded. A 17-year-old was charged with first-degree murder and attempted murder. The investigation uncovered evidence that the attack was motivated by misogynistic incel ideology.
Another first for terrorism prosecution in Canada was the charges against the London truck attack suspect that have linked the incident to Islamophobia.
This shows that both misogynistic and Islamophobic acts are increasingly considered terrorist acts that pose risks to the security of Canada. The Canadian government defines these types of extremist threats as driven by a range of grievances across the traditional ideological spectrum.
The decision to update the first-degree murder charges to murder and terrorism charges for the London truck attack suspect sends the message that Canadians who kill other Canadians based on political, ideological and religious motivations are, in the eyes of the law, not just murderers but terrorists too.
Greyhound’s exit illustrates the need for a publicly funded national transit system.
The federal government’s recently announced $15 billion in transport funding is a step in the right direction. However, such announcements do not necessarily lead to improvements in public transportation because provincial governments have the final decision.
An integrated national public transportation system could be designed to improve connectedness between communities and to needed services — including health care, education, financial services, government programs and food retail. It would promote environmental justice, health equity, human dignity and mobility rights.
Our research looks at how governments’ political choices influence these social determinants of health and health outcomes. We have focused on how budget cuts to public transportation worsen health outcomes. This Saskatchewan-based research shows that public transportation cuts can be especially detrimental to vulnerable groups such as people with disabilities, seniors and people with low incomes.
A new study called Here Today, Gone Tomorrow will look at vulnerabilities linked to the absence or presence of public transportation in rural and remote locations.
Why public transportation?
Transportation affects health because of its connections to service access and climate change.
Globally, 1.5 million people die from road transport — more than from HIV, malaria or tuberculosis. Canada had the fourth highest rate of traffic fatalities in 2009 among OECD countries. The most recent data shows that road traffic fatality in Canada continues to be higher (5.2 per 100,000 inhabitants) than the European Union average (4.9 per 100,000 inhabitants).
Greyhound Lines’ exit from Central Canada has left a major transit gap.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
Public transportation can reduce poverty while ensuring health-care access. A 2019 study found that almost one million urban Canadians are at risk of “transportation poverty” because lack of reliable public transportation separates people from economic opportunities.
Our own research on the dismantling of the Saskatchewan Transportation Company (STC) revealed reduced health-care access and increased waste within the health system because hospitals had relied on the public bus network to transport equipment, blood samples and medicines. Similarly, in the United Kingdom, the large-scale dismantling of public transportation options has left many communities stranded.
Public transportation is a future-facing, climate friendly option. Transportation accounts for 28 per cent of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions — higher than the global rate of 23 per cent. This contributes to the effects of global climate change, which disproportionately impact those who are poor. As a solution to the climate crisis, public transportation is far more feasible than other suggested approaches like electric cars.
Apart from the reasons above, a national public transportation system is necessary because its absence normalizes the oppression of already disadvantaged groups. In Western Canada, the tragedy of the highway of tears offers a cautionary tale.
Between 1969 and 2011 an estimated 40 women, mostly Indigenous, disappeared or were murdered on Highway 16 in northern British Columbia. The national inqury into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls concluded that “lack of supportive infrastructure and transportation” has played a role in exposing Indigenous women to danger and violence.
A sign on the Highway of Tears near Moricetown, B.C.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
Absence of public transportation also disproportionately affects people with disabilities. People with
of Saskatchewan Transportation Company’s ridership. Consequently, dismantling the STC disproportionately affected these groups.
Although a patchwork of private providers emerged after the STC closure, accidents were reported and services were not accessible to people with disabilities. It took a complaint by a former STC rider to the Canadian Transportation Association and two years of back-and-forth for a ruling to be made that private bus service providers must be accessible to all.
Such outcomes illustrate the need for an integrated national public transport system in Canada.
Current concerns for climate justice, reduction of social inequalities, accessibility and mobility rights call for an integrated transportation system linking communities and services throughout Canada. Treating transportation as an essential service and mobility as a human right would go far in eliminating existing inequalities.
In re-imagining future solutions, Canada should pay special attention to the social dimensions of transportation, including its impact on women, the poor, people with disabilities, the elderly and Indigenous and racialized people.
Canada needs a national, publicly funded system integrated across provinces and informed by social, environmental, economic, health and accessibility concerns. Although countries like Estonia or Luxemburg differ from Canada in contexts such as size, their national public transportation networks can provide examples.
Such a radical vision may only be possible if transportation again becomes regulated in Canada.
Wednesday, 16 June 2021 00:25 Written by gistlovers
Angry whistleblower lawyers and nurse have identified a surgeon, who removes immigrants’ wombs at a detention facility in Georgia, USA, while working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE.
A whistleblower complaint was sent to the Department of Homeland Security and its inspector general, by a nurse named Dawn Wooten, accusing the Irwin County Detention Centre of allowing an unusual number of hysterectomies to be performed on immigrants detained there, “often without their consent”.
Wooten said the women were sent to a doctor outside the facility, who chose to remove all or some parts of their uterus, or womb. While Wooten did not identify the doctor, lawyers for detained women identified the doctor as Mahendra Amin.
It was reported that Amin continued to see women from the facility for the past several years despite complaints from his patients.
Amin was also identified through interviews with a detainee, two detainee advocates, and a former Irwin employee. He also has ties to Irwin County Hospital, where some detainees at the detention centre are taken for treatment.
One former Irwin employee confirmed that Amin is the only gynaecologist that treats those who are detained. “All I know is, if you go in for anything, the majority of the time, he’s going to suggest surgery,” the former Irwin employee said.
“I don’t know why. I just — I don’t know why. He does a lot of surgeries.” Reacting, Amin said he only performed “one or two hysterectomies in the past two [or] three years.” However, he didn’t answer whether those procedures were done on people detained at Irwin.
“Everything is wrong, and if you want to talk, talk to the hospital administrator,” Amin said, adding that the allegations were ruining his practice. Speaking, Irwin County Hospital CEO, Paige Wynn, said consent was obtained for all surgical procedures. Wynn said: “We do not do any surgeries that do not have prior consent from ICE and the patients. “We cannot specifically comment on any specific patient matter due to patient privacy obligations.”
For ICE: “US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, does not comment on matters presented to the Office of the Inspector General, which provides independent oversight and accountability within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. “ICE takes all allegations seriously and defers to the OIG regarding any potential investigation and/or results. “That said, in general, anonymous, unproven allegations, made without any fact-checkable specifics, should be treated with the appropriate skepticism they deserve.”
The detention facility, which houses not only immigration detainees but also inmates from the US Marshalls and Irwin County, is operated by LaSalle Corrections, a private prison company. Lawyers that named Amin as the surgeon removes immigrants’ wombs are Elizabeth Mathren and Benjamin Osorio, who said their clients had hysterectomies performed on them that they didn’t think were necessary. One client said she was told she had the procedure because she had stage 4 cervical cancer. She later went to an oncologist who said she didn’t have cancer.
While we currently have no evidence to determine the cause of death for each child, we know that they died a political death — these children were the disappeared.
Indigenous lives were broken down, sterilized of any trace of the gifts inherited from their parents and ancestors and re-packaged into Canadian bodies.
Like branch plants in a vast production scheme, the state made good use of the extensive church network to co-ordinate the extraction of raw material—Indigenous children.
But the revelation of a mass disposal site for children — unrecorded and hidden — on the grounds of the Kamloops Indian Residential School tells us that the regulation of Indigenous life extended into death.
A 1937 photograph of the Kamloops Indian Residential School.Archdiocese of Vancouver Archives
The politics of death and mourning
A fact many Indigenous people understand is that life’s benefits and burdens are shot through the colonial prism. As we go through life, we quickly learn that the weight of history’s finger is pressing firmly on the scale.
What is often overlooked is how that uneven distribution in life carries on through death.
Nowhere is this more apparent than the atrocity at Tk’emlúps which has sharpened this for many Indigenous nations, as we see how the Catholic church not only denied these children the capacity to shape the means of and choose the ends of their life, but also they denied their communities control over their death.
“(W)hat commemoration often involves is much more than remembering the dead. It requires a serious engagement with the things that ghosts and ancestors want: a proper burial, a pot of beer, a feast, money, a fitting grave-stone, the blood of a reindeer, the blood of kin.”
Until their remains were recently located, the Catholic church was content to leave 215 children as ‘disappeared.’
The disappeared — those that have been secretly disposed — produce a unique grieving. They leave families and communities in a state of suspended mourning, never sure whether their loved one is alive or dead, or where their remains have been left.
It is life abandoned to death with no chance of the living to intervene.
Now that they have been located, the surviving families, communities and Nations can begin to think about custodianship of the remains, mourning and memorialization. That much is up to them and every support and resource ought to be provided.
If you are an Indian Residential School survivor, or have been affected by the residential school system and need help, you can contact the 24-hour Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line: 1-866-925-4419
These contaminants belong to a family of chemicals called polyfluoroalkyl and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), and are used in food packaging, waterproof clothing and firefighting foams. The true number of PFAS that exist is hard to pin down, but estimates suggest there are more than 4,700 types, as industry continues to make new ones.
Although PFAS levels appear to be decreasing in southern Canada, probably due to their decrease in consumer products in the past 20 years, they have been on the rise in some parts of the Arctic.
From 2016 to 2019, our research group, led by environmental toxicologist Brian Laird, invited people living in the Yukon and Northwest Territories to participate in a study to measure PFAS levels, so that we could understand how people living in remote Indigenous communities were being exposed to these chemicals.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a group of emerging contaminants. (Ohio Department of Health)
Effects of PFAS exposure on human health.(European Environment Agency)
However, the available science does not support any conclusion on expected health outcomes: we currently do not know if the level of PFNA observed in the current study is high enough to cause, or be associated, with any health effects.
It’s also a challenge to identify the sources of PFAS and PFNA, particularly for these northern communities. PFNA is used as a surfactant, by example on stain-resistant carpets or on non-stick coating of pots and pans, and may also be produced when other chemicals degrade. PFNA may also be transported over long distances like other PFAS.
There is little available data from Northern Canada to know if levels in humans have decreased or increased over time. However, since PFAS concentrations have increased in the Arctic environment, PFAS have also increased in wild food sources such as fish.
Finding PFAS in the blood of people living in these northern communities comes with an additional burden: many have a strong relationship with wild food and water, and environmental contamination can jeopardize the traditional lifestyles of northern and Indigenous communities.
Dene life and the connection to the environment.
Environmental policies
Since 1991, a group of international experts on contaminants in the Arctic have regularly released and updated the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP) report to document chemical trends and their effects on ecosystems and people. Part of its goal is to inform policy and decision-making. The next update is due out this fall.
The finding that toxic chemicals are found in the blood of northerners at levels higher than people residing in the south shows that the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions are not exempt from industrial contamination. Additional monitoring and regulations should be put in place to decrease the exposure to persistent pollutants, to ensure the health of those who live there.
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