Posted on 06/27/2009 3:43:58 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
A 13-story apartment building under construction in Shanghai has toppled over almost intact, killing one worker.
Footage broadcast on state broadcaster CCTV shows the whole building lying on its side.
The building reportedly tipped over at the base, crumbling to the ground in one big piece.
It's believed the 28-year-old worker killed had gone into the building to get his tools and tried to jump out the window when the building fell.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au ...
I wonder if Barry still admires the Chinese Infastructure?? Central Planning.... Same sort of people will be in charge of our Health Care...SCAREY STUFF!!
More proof that the “domino effect” is a myth.
Maybe they can just live in it that way. Looks much more stable than the ones that haven't fallen over. Who would want to live in the other building now? Maybe they should just shove them over on their sides too...
Whoops. I wonder if they’ll go ahead and move people into the remaining identical buildings.
That’s some pretty solid construction, except for the basement part.
Could be that complete lack of a foundation. Nothing but soft dirt under that building.
Maybe the idea was to build that last?
The units on the far left of the first picture look awfully leany too.
It did hold together pretty good! It just needed some guy wires!
You're not crazy. That's probably how they are going to salvage the other buildings.
In South Korea they had some of these kinds of complexes built with faulty concrete and no rebar. The rebar was late in arriving and they had to meet their schedule.
From the nice solid way this is laying on the ground I bet they took the rebar from South Korea. Musta translated the plans wrong though, perhaps thats why they left the foundation for last.
Um. Where’s the foundation? Am I missing something?
I noticed that too. Unless the dirt covered it up afterward.
Solid — no kidding. I don’t even see anything cracked!
Maybe not.
I have first hand experience with this situation having recently been removed from an 8 story university building project for not backing down on reporting numerous major structural flaws during construction
The contractor superintendent in charge of construction did not think certain engineering aspects of the moment frame design were as important as the construction schedule. The Engineer is also under pressure by the owner to assist the contractor to come in on budget.
And this was a high occupancy building in an earthquake zone 4 on liquefaction sub soil. No way was I just going to stand by and watch.
I heard that the Building Authority's assigned inspector who was unknowledgable and in collusion with the contractor for non-compliance was subsequently removed ( fired/layed off). At one point he took me to lunch and told me to "back off". And this is after I consulted with our staff licensed Professional Engineer to confirm that thes items needed to be enforced
However I also was removed by my employer in order to keep the peace and please the client,( a major University )and a worldwide major building contractor.
So I have firsthand knowledge of how something like this can happen
It does look like the foundation was inadequate. Duh.
Chinese officials are notoriously corrupt. I wonder how much the building inspector got paid to sign off on the foundation. In that soft soil the pilings might have to be deeper than the building. I knew I guy was the construction engineer on a building in Chesapeake, Virginia, on the tallest building in town, right across from city hall. The soil there is quite soft, I don't recall the depth of the pilings, but they drove them until each strike of the driver resulted about 1/100” movement of the pile. And I believe the piles were 4’ on center around the foundation.
In Manhattan, you blast and build on cleaned out hole, the whole island is bedrock.
Lens distortion.
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