Building under construction collapses in George

rh1 said:
I could not proceed with building my garage until the inspector checked the foundations.

They checked and signed off on various aspects.

Surely, a building this size should have engineers signing off after each phase?
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Should be. "Normal" procedure is that the contractor's civil/site engineer will monitor while construction is ongoing, inspect initially himself/herself/theyself, then again with architect/designer who will approve it's done correctly according to design, then before casting a slab, invite customers engineer/resident engineer to inspection and both will sign off a check sheet with specs and tasks listed and approved.
 
ShaunSA said:
Does anyone actually face consequences for schit like this?

That Tongaat mall collapse doesn't seem to have gotten anywhere and that was yonks ago
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Depends on the investigation and who is at fault. Full HSE procedures and responsibilities and review of the construction, all the paperwork including inspections and on and on.

We had a similarish type event in Cape Town (front page of Die Son) when a freshly cast ramp collapsed and killed 2 people who were sheltering from rain underneath. These guys were the dudes who powerfloat which is often done long into the night as the concrete cures and stiffens. Unfortunately it was raining and the guys lit a fire to stay warm. Wooden boards etc expanded, load was still wet and the whole thing which was a ramp at like a 20 degree angle going up to the next floor car park, creaked and moved forward and it flopped down on them.

You never go underneath a live load while it is being cast/cured, never mind lighting a fire.
 
rh1 said:
I could not proceed with building my garage until the inspector checked the foundations.

They checked and signed off on various aspects.

Surely, a building this size should have engineers signing off after each phase?
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Very likely what happened:
Builder: "Trust me brah, I have 20 years of experience, you can remove the props"

I bet @Spizz and @buka001 can both attest to the existence of this particular species of builder.
 
konfab said:
Very likely what happened:
Builder: "Trust me brah, I have 20 years of experience, you can remove the props"

I bet @Spizz and @buka001 can both attest to the existence of this particular species of builder.
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Problem is, even the big well known companies don't carry so many of their own artisans and use a lot of sub contractors. In South Africa these days that is usually guys with no formal training who have learnt on the job. I had one guy who was a supervisor for the subbie who did the formwork for the slabs on a 12 storey building at Canal Walk. As much as I told him, and I told him every single time how the props need to be distributed on the floors below, he just didn't understand why. I had to inspect before a pour and then place a couple of guys on floors below during the slab pours to make sure no one moved a single prop because he'd start to move them for the next pour.
 
Spizz said:
Problem is, even the big well known companies don't carry so many of their own artisans and use a lot of sub contractors. In South Africa these days that is usually guys with no formal training who have learnt on the job. I had one guy who was a supervisor for the subbie who did the formwork for the slabs on a 12 storey building at Canal Walk. As much as I told him, and I told him every single time how the props need to be distributed on the floors below, he just didn't understand why. I had to inspect before a pour and then place a couple of guys on floors below during the slab pours to make sure no one moved a single prop because he'd start to move them for the next pour.
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This, so much this.

The appreciation of the importance of temporary works in construction leaves a lot to be desired.

Often they leave it to the foreman to determine what formwork he needs for a pour, without obtaining a proper design. Even when there is a design, nobody checks if the formwork has been installed in accordance with that design and the designer accounted for any changes to the design.
 
I don't know how to state this correctly, but the collapsed building does not look like it consists of a lot of rubble? I cannot imagine how 49 people are trapped/buried in there.

Also, the pics I saw post-collapse did not even have the area cordoned off. I am sure it looks different right now.
 
Candystore said:
I don't know how to state this correctly, but the collapsed building does not look like it consists of a lot of rubble? I cannot imagine how 49 people are trapped/buried in there.
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To answer your question in two parts:

1) Buildings are made out of heavy materials, which will pulverise themselves and anything else around them once they start moving. Remember F=ma. Mass of the material a building is made out of is immense and it is accelerating at 9.81m/s^2. That dust you see everywhere in the video and aftermath is produced from the building material getting crushed.

There is a very good reason why structural engineers avoid the "a" part of Newton's second law.

2) Oh I can imagine that very easily. If the forces in play are enough to pulverise concrete into dust, imagine what it will do to a meatbag. Basically from the perspective of the building materials moving, a human body might as well be water in terms of its ability to resist forces. So throw 3-4 20l buckets of water over that site to simulate a human and see how easily you can find them.

In layman's terms:

Building:

1715071503843.png

Building.zip:
1715071532353.png
 
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