NEARLY $1B TENTATIVE SETTLEMENT IN COLLAPSE

Families of the victims of the collapse of the Champlain Towers South condominium in Surfside, Fla., that killed 98 people last year have reached a $997 million settlement to compensate them for their staggering losses of life.

The settlement, revealed at a court hearing Wednesday and still pending final approval, includes insurance companies, developers of an adjacent building and other defendants in the extensive civil case. It comes six weeks before the anniversary of the tragedy June 24.

“I’m shocked by this result — I think it’s fantastic,” said Judge Michael Hanzman of the Circuit Court in Miami-Dade County. “This is a recovery that is far in excess of what I had anticipated.”

Before Wednesday’s surprise announcement, the judge had approved a far smaller settlement of $83 million to be split among condo unit owners for their property losses. No compensation had been determined for the families of the dead, who would now receive the $997 million.

“It represents a lot of money, but it’s never going to bring back Jonah’s mom,” said Neil Handler, whose son was one of just a few people rescued alive from the rubble. Jonah Handler’s mother, Stacie Fang, 54, was the first victim identified in the collapse.

“Nobody can deal with what I dealt with last Sunday on Mother’s Day — that’s not something any money is ever going to replace for him,” Handler said of his son, who is now 16 and suffered fractures to many bones in his back.

How the money will be divided among the relatives of the 98 victims will be determined in the coming weeks. The National Institute of Standards and Technology is still investigating what caused the 13-story, 135-unit building to partially crumble in the middle of the night, a review that could take years.

The differing compensation for victims’ families, who lost loved ones, and survivors, who lost condo units, led to significant friction between the groups and to raw, emotional court testimony at a hearing in March that pitted the two sides against each other.

“We know we did not cause that collapse,” Oren Cytrynbaum, a unit owner, said then. “A billion dollars, if I were on the other side, would not bring those loved ones back.”