13 Story Shanghai Apartment Building Topples Over – In One Piece

June 29, 2009 • Related • Filed Under

This is one of the most amazing pictures I have ever seen – its the picture of a newly built apartment building in Shanghai, China that collapsed this weekend.

Shanghai Building CollapseShanghai Building Collapse

The amazing part of this collapse isn’t how it happened – it’s how the building still resembles a building and didnt literally disintegrate once it hit the ground.

Alot of the press is saying how its a perfect example of shoddy Chinese construction work, and a perfect demonstration of how the rapid construction activity in China will lead to more disasters like this. That may be true, obviously there were some major problems that caused the building to topple over, but the other 13 stories of the building are still in one piece!

Apparently the cause of the collapse is due to water seepage into the foundation footings, and the dirt that the footings were encased in that caused the building to just fall over.

Trust me, I’m not saying that this building (or the similar ones surrounding it) are safe – I really have no idea one way or another, but it’s still pretty remarkable that the building could just topple over like that, and still stay pretty much in one piece after it falls to the ground.

andrew@alconic-inc.com

View Comments »

  1. Comment by Michael B on July 2 2009:

    Hey, you get what you pay for!

  2. Comment by Chris. Chan on July 6 2009:

    After investigation they found out the reason was due to a big hole was dug in front of the building to prepare for an underground car park and they pile up all the soil behind the building that caused a soil shift and ended up causing the building topple over.

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