Very little lasts forever, buildings fall down all the time but the occupants have long left and its demise is generally gradual until one day someone might notice the remnant has fallen flat. Others disappear silently and aren’t remarkable in any way. More extraordinary is the unexpected collapse of a building with occupants. The Champlain Towers South collapse on June 24, 2021 at 1:22 a.m. in Surfside, Florida wasn’t truly sudden or really unexpected. It seems the residents and city knew something was amiss but no one was alarmed by the deteriorating building.
The astrology of the moment shows quite simply the actor in the collapse is the 7° Leo Mars in the 5th. In time, engineers will most likely find that the pool deck collapse was the trigger that led to the building coming down. The zodiac sign Leo is fixed fire. A fixed concrete member directly moving and initiating the collapse could be described as a Leo Mars. The 5th house are playgrounds of all types so the movement was likely the pool deck but it could have been another playground such as a theater, bar or game room, if another existed somewhere. The Sabian symbol for 7° Leo is “the constellations in the sky”. The movement opened up a gap and the night sky could be seen.
Pluto has dominion over the dead. When Pluto arrives he takes away the dead and, in the horoscope, he has arrived in the 10th associated with major buildings. This building was done for and Pluto was going to take it. In the stars, he was in opposition to the 26° Cancer Venus whose symbol is “contentment and happiness in luxury, people reading on davenports”. These happy, prone people were in the 4th house, their home. Pluto slides across the chart onto these people. The 26° Pisces Pallas has the symbol “watching the very thin moon crescent appearing at sunset, different people realize the time has come to go ahead with their different projects.” Time was up, Mars moved the playground and Pluto came for the dead building. The 2° Cancer Sun conjunct the Imum Coeli, the deepest part of the chart, is on the symbol “a man on a magic carpet hovers over a large area of land.” The foundation collapsed and the building stayed afloat just a few seconds before the debris slid down.
Pluto only rules the dead, he cannot touch the living. If the building’s structure and foundation had been restored to a good standard, Pluto would not have been able to take it. Not all extraordinary building collapses occur under a Pluto opposition but when debris moves and causes notable damage such as a mass casualty event it is often the culprit. This was the case for the September 11th attack on the United States (Pluto in the 3rd opposition Saturn in the 9th), the 1966 Aberfan coal tip disaster (Pluto in the 10th opposition Chiron & Saturn in the 4th), and the 1902 collapse of St. Mark’s Campanile (Pluto conjunct M.C. opposition Uranus conjunct I.C). In the Champlain Towers South collapse, Pluto carried off the building’s dead foundation and the leftover debris slid into the 4th house killing the people. Once everything is examined it is likely the engineers will find the pool deck moved causing the complete destruction of the building’s foundation with only a skeleton of the upper floors hovering above the ground for a mere moment until it all fell down.