New Zealand Building Collapse

[dik]

...from the BBC, "A building that collapsed in New Zealand's Christchurch earthquake, killing 115, was badly designed and should not have been approved.

The report from the Royal Commission said the engineer who designed the Canterbury Television (CTV) building was working "beyond his competence".

His overseer took a hands-off approach and did not review structural details of the project, it found.

Prime Minister John Key described the report as "grim" reading."

 

[ishvaaag]

Well, seeing the number of victims, he will find difficult to find sympathetic ears to his claim of ability if he stands on that... Anyway when disgraces with fatal victims occur at least the reclaiming party always will find someone arguing the design and inspection was technically at fault and of course codes were not followed. I used to say that if everything should be perfect and in accord to the code I NEVER would stamp one end of the works certificate.

Codes are made for these things, and are sometimes even utilized more viciously against those practicing in the field whilst they are not even precise or ample enough to truly warrant the public safety in the way they purport to.

This is, I argue, an unjust and quite unavoidable burden over the designers and even controllers because NO code, or compliance with code, recent that it may be WARRANTS 100% that no failure will occur, more at the extraordinary events where design and forces meet at the "service" level. The public, wanting to be deceived, is spared of this technicality that all but defendants want not told about for the sake of having some propiciatory victim (or just derail a commercially successful designer at those disgraceful moments of their careers).

Yes, everything can be done better ... but it could be an spectacle to have the blaming parties on the shoes of those that did the task from the start and see what happens.

 

[Archie264]

This is probably not the right forum for this and it's not fair of me to put words into the mouth of the late, great Milton Freidman, but from my understanding of his position on such issues as public licensure and governmental regulatory agencies I surmise that he would argue that instead of making things safer, building codes exacerbate public danger.

In his writings sometimes he referenced such things as the pharmaceutical industry regulating what drugs could be released. He pointed out that while it's easy to count the number of people killed from a faulty drug it wasn't as easy to count the (likely higher) number of people who died waiting for drugs to be approved for release.

With regard to engineering, perhaps he would argue that people killed due to failure to follow complex, proscriptive, minimal-strength codes that can be difficult to cross-check might pose more of a hazzard than relying on engineers to build structures strong enough in the first place, absent such regulation. In such circumstances, so the argument goes, the proven reputations of the parties involved and the risk of tort lawsuits would provide greater, not lesser, safety than reliance on prescriptive codes.

Obviously many will disagree, and again, it's not fair of me to put words in his mouth, but his writings on such topics are very thought-provoking, at the very least.

 

[tony1851]

So much for on-line translators!

 

[hokie66]

Reports from the investigations:

http://www.dbh.govt.nz/canterbury-earthquake-technical-investigation

 

[berkshire]

From the New Zeeland goverment,
"Current building requirements are more stringent now than in the 1980s when the CTV building was constructed. Standards have progressively improved over time as more is understood about how buildings respond in earthquakes"

If the building was built to the standards and regulations prevailing at the time of construction, was a retrofit ordered when these standards were found to be inadequate?
B.E.

"A free people ought not only be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government."
-George Washington, President of the United States----

 

[dik]

THis is the link I downloaded all the files from:

http://canterbury.royalcommission.govt.nz/

Dik

 

[berkshire]

Dik,
An excerpt from the report you reference: " The engineering design of the building was deficient
in a number of respects. While there were elements of
the applicable codes that were confusing, a building
permit should not have been issued for the building
as designed. There were also inadequacies in the
construction of the building."

This is pretty damming.
B.E.

"A free people ought not only be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government."
-George Washington, President of the United States----