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The news triggered a series of discussions on the building’s construction quality, possible collusion between officials and merchants, and demands for compensation from buyers who had purchased flats in the building.
The building, located at the Lotus Riverside complex, collapsed at about 5:30 a.m. Saturday. Six workers managed to escape, but one 27-year-old worker was trapped. The building was due for completion next year.
The collapse has added to the worries of the huge numbers of people eager to buy a flat of their own, but facing high housing prices and concerned about the quality of properties for sale. The real estate business is booming, despite well-known problems with construction quality and poor management.
Chinese netizens were quick to satirize the incident, by praising the quality of the windows, for instance, which did not break in the collapse. “One building tipped over, but more Chinese products have withstood this accident, raising hopes and opportunities for export,” one wrote in an online forum.
Actually, according to experts who investigated the collapse, the reason the windows remained unbroken was because of the building’s strong main structure, which fell in one piece, placing no unbalanced pressure on the windows.
The initial judgment, after local authorities led an investigation into the incident, was that the accident resulted from poor construction practices, rather than the use of poor materials or the buckling of a flood wall on the nearby Dianpu River, which were previously suspected.
The main culprit seemed to be a 10-meter-high pile of dirt that had been piled on one side of the building, state-run media said. The property developer, Shanghai Meidu Property Company, reportedly wanted to keep the dug-out earth to use for landscaping on the residential complex.
Piling it up was intended to save the considerable cost of moving the dirt back and forth. But construction experts told the media that no experienced, professional construction company would pile up so much dirt next to a building under construction – especially since dirt was being removed on the other side of the building, where the foundation for an underground parking lot was being dug. The removal of dirt on one side and the heavy mound on the other might have caused the building to topple, the expert said.
However, the problems do not end there. Several photographs taken from the fallen building showed that it tipped over at its base, exposing broken thin prestressed concrete pilings about 5 meters long. The foundations of the building appear to have been very shallow. But Shanghai is known for its soft muddy soil, so the builders should have taken this into account.
Moreover, a section of a flood wall on the Pudong River 20 to 30 meters from the building buckled on Friday, which was also blamed on design flaws and construction faults at the construction site. The wall was pushed out several meters toward the river, local media said.
The Shanghai Guangqi Project Supervision Corp., the local authority responsible for the Lotus Riverside complex, told the press that it had raised concerns about the accumulated dirt with the developer several times, to no avail.
In fact, the residential complex had been granted an award as a “civilized construction site,” and passed the quality check by the city’s safety supervision bureau, which gave it a permit to sell the uncompleted flats. Thus there was possible dereliction of duty by the city authority, the private monitoring party and surely the developer.
Moreover, while digging up their own dirt on the project, local media found that at least three key shareholders of the property developer were local officials of Meilong township and its land expropriation authority. That likely accounted for the fact that the land had been sold at a price three times lower than the standard market price.
The developer’s profit from the Lotus Riverside complex was expected to be an estimated 10,000 yuan (US$1,460) per square meter. Total earnings from the 489 flats already sold could have exceeded 400 million yuan (US$58.5 million).
Many of those who have purchased flats on the estate want to back out of the deals, including buyers whose properties are located in other buildings in the same complex. It is unsure whether they will be successful. Also, some whose properties were within the collapsed building are demanding a refund based on the current market price rather than their original purchase price, which is sure to cause further disputes.
