Yep! As far as I know, Unreal doesn’t support vertex cached animations except for morph targets. I remember hearing something about it being in the works, but I could be wrong there 
For a building collapse that needs to be destroyed consistently every time, it’ll need to be rigged with bones unless someone knows another method. The link below has a sample hip file with a basic animation setup (not a building collapse). As for generating the bones procedurally, some studios have autorig scripts for Maya. I’m working on the same thing for Houdini, but it’s not quite ready for prime time yet. Whenever I finish it, I’ll definitely post it here!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fd2sup0ustl2ep6/BASE_SKEL.hip?dl=0