The authorities in Thailand investigate the construction of a bangkok skyscraper which collapsed during the earthquake last week, killing at least 13 people.
The 30 -storey structure in the catuchak district, which was under construction for the audit office of the state of Thailand by a Chinese company and a Thai construction company, collapsed in a bunch of concrete when the earthquake of magnitude 7.7 struck on Friday, bending – and possibly buried – around 90 construction workers.
The efforts to locate the about 75 people still feared trap under the rubble of the unfinished tower continue, despite the expiration of the 72 -hour period which is considered critical for survival. Many workers are said to be migrant workers from Myanmar, where the earthquake has caused a general devastation, and where the death toll has now exceeded 2,000. At least one of the deceased workers was from Cambodia.
The state audit building was a joint venture between Italian-Thai Development PLC and a subsidiary of China Railway No.10 Engineering Group, which operates under the China Railway Engineering Public Corporation.
The fact that the building is the only major structure to collapse in Bangkok, which is more than 1,000 kilometers from the epicenter of the earthquake, aroused the immediate attention of the government. On Saturday, Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra ordered government agencies to investigate the deep cause of the collapse of the building and to present their conclusions in a week. The Minister of the Interior, Anutin Charnvirakul, subsequently announced the training of a committee to carry out the investigation, which will examine the construction plan, the standard of the material used and all the possible dangerous actions which were taken during the construction of the building.
“This building was newly built. It should therefore have undergone an earthquake,” he said, according to the Bangkok Post.
A large part of the attention of the public and the media has focused on the steel bars used in the construction of the building, which, according to some reports, were of lower quality. On Sunday, the Minister of Industry, Akanat Promphan, told Reuters that his ministry had closed seven factories for producing quality steel less than the last six months, and expressed his concerns that the steel of these suppliers or similar suppliers was used. “Many of these factories have used an old production process and outsourced China,” said Akanat.
According to some reports, the steel used in the construction of the building in Chatchak came from Xin Ke Yuan Steel, a company that was billed in January for producing lower quality steel, although the link was not confirmed by the Ministry of Industry.
Yesterday, the Thai Industrial Standards Institute announced that it had tested 28 samples of steel in the collapsed building and that two had not complied with government standards. Non Thichai Likitaporn, the chief of division 1 of the standards of the Institute, said that other samples would be tested to determine if this has played a role in the collapse of the building.
There were concerns about the state audit offices building even before the earthquake of March 28, which also caused a general devastation alongside Myanmar. Mana Nimitmongkol, president of the Anti-Corruption Organization of Thailand (ACOT), who examines government projects, told Reuters on Sunday that he had informed the state audit office concerning the concerns about the project before the earthquake on Friday.
Mana said that project visits during construction by Acot had raised concerns about delays, workers’ shortages and the possible “angle cut”. “Sometimes the number of workers on the spot was much cheaper than it should have, causing delays,” he told Reuters. “Potentially, there was a hurry to finish the project towards the end, which could lead to a drop in the level of work.” The government had threatened to cancel the project in January due to delays, he added.
Also on Sunday, police announced that they had interviewed four Chinese workers for withdrawing 32 containers’ files behind the collapsed building. The files contained various documents, including information on entrepreneurs and subcontractors, the police major, Major-General Noppasin Poonsawat, the deputy police chief of Bangkok, told journalists. The men, who were employees of a company who was part of the building building, told the police that they had gathered the documents to prepare insurance compensation complaints.
According to the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority, 14,430 cases of damage caused by the buildings of the earthquake on Friday were recorded and the inspections of the damaged buildings through the Thai capital continue. Today, Chadchart Sittipunt, the governor of Bangkok, rendindeD City Declaration as a “disaster zone”.