A residential building suspected to be over 80-years-old collapsed in Chennai on Wednesday morning. The owner of the building and one of the tenants died in the accident. Several persons have been hospitalised.
The two-storey building at Sunguvar Street in Triplicane, which also housed a printing press, collapsed with a loud noise around 7.15 a.m.
Fire and rescue personnel are fighting to rescue those trapped. No victim was spotted under the debris till 9.30 a.m.
The few residents who escaped unhurt, turned volunteers at the spot, regulating the crowd and clearing debris. Many volunteers came to the spot after listening to the news on television. Residents, who are all tenants, say that they have lost everything in the collapse.
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That is the sad state of all the buildings in triplicane. Some are
built even before independence which are not maintainted even to the
minimum extent possible. The new building are built hardly in no time.
You leave the place for a vacation come back to see a almost finished
flat awaiting for the house warming function. Neither do the
promoters nor the flat owners care about the condition of the flat
after 10 years. The state of the building is known to the owners and
they still buy a flat at triplicane, just to take their chance.
Nobody other than Lord Parthasarathy can change their mindset.
@Arunprakash - The building discussed here is about 80 yrs old. So I do
not think the geotechnical / geophysical studies was of any relevance to
its collapse. John rightly mentioned that after certain age, we need to
inspect the buildings for structural stability and renovate it.
80 year old building allowed to house a Printing press which does have some amount of vibration - not a helathy formula. Should we not have building inspection for older buildings as a regular procedure?
I'm a civil engineer working in U.A.E as a project manager. For carrying out structural design soil parameters like safe bearing capacity type of soil etc.. has to be taken into consideration to my knowledge for residential buildings geotechnical/geophysical studies are not carried out. Authorities should make it mandatory to submit these studies during obtaining approval for building construction.
I entirely agree with mr John.Unless, there is accountability and responsibility there wont be any change.
Design life of any structure which is perfectly built as per the IS
456 standard can be safely considered as 75 years. However,
considering "unintentional" mistakes while construction, natural
forces (heavy storm, rain water seepage etc) the design life of the
building may go down further. Considering all the above, 50 years is
considered as threshold for repairing and rehabilitating a building.
It has to be noted that it is a necessary obligation of flat promoters
to convey the design life to the buyer.
It is also important for the buyers to visit the site during
construction especially while "rebars(steel) are placed" and Concrete
is poured. This is the time where the site people try to reduce the
steel (to sell it for themselves) and try to pour low quality
concrete. This will have serious consequence where building
deteriorates very soon after the construction and starts developing
cracks on the walls. Unfortunately most mason and engineer don't
understand and have their own way.
The photo shows one more tragedy in the making - a piece of the roof
slab precariously hanging over the group doing the rescue effort - Can't
we do the rescue more safely.
One gets the impression that such building collapses seem to be happening in almost all the cities in India, mostly in the 'Older' parts of each metropolis. Which is the 'competent authority' which should take a call on when such buildings are due for 'repair and rehabilitation'?
Is it obligatory for flat promoters to inform prospective buyers about
the "Design Life" of a building? How does one assess the "Design Life" of any building?
Mr.John is right. construction cos and private contractors with unskilled engineers and hired casual labour selected at random build houses and complexes violating the laid down rules of the state central govts -seldom monitored by the Govt agencies- at phenominal Sq.Ft rates to fleece people at large. Structural damages with gaping cracks in the course of a couple of years after construction takes place. these construction cos and the contractors won't be available when the buidings \complexes collapse . Actually, these structures rise with out any quality tests r controls by any authorized agencies or Govt Bodies like corporations| Cmdcs; Only Paper works r done to cover up the fallacies. Private buidings face all sorts of risks with no assurance of age by the builders. Surely , more and more buildings will fall to kill the innocent residents - either owners or tenants.People will have no compensations as accountability will become difficult.
Nothing to be surprised. Thats the state of our buildings throughout the country. As a civil engineer, i need to make a point that most of the buildings (especially residential and small business) are not built to IS 456 (Indian Code for Plain and reinforced concrete). Many designs produced in India violates this code for commercial reasons. Even these ill designed buildings get approved and when it reaches the stage of construction, the materials are once again stolen by the contractor or the site engineer and once again the building gets deteriorated from its original strength.
As far as the building collapsed above is concerned, every building has its "Design life" period which could be 50 years or 75 years depending upon the way it is designed. Once this "Design life" has reached, the building MUST be repaired and rehabilitated, something never happens in India. Until we follow proper engineering in our buildings, we are going to have lots of news like this in the future.
The article is not clear as to the location of printing machinery. It is possible that sustained vibration of machinery could cause building failure. Fire deparment may look into it. The picture shows atleast two dozen people standing on the collapsed building but not doing any rescue work. Authorities should have cordoned of the site. These people endanger themseves and also the trapped people by overloading the collapsed structure. Investigating adjacent structures and water below ground floor could provide clues for the collapse.
First I would like to submit my condolence to the families who suffered paint and sorrow due to what happened today morning BUT I believe the Authorities also to be blamed for allowing 80 years building to stay without checking its prevailing condition. Even when they (corporation) collect the taxes they didn't even how old is this building.
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