No casualties at other buildings and construction sites
Possible design and construction defects such as flat slab structure
Following the earthquake that struck Myanmar, a 33-story building under construction in Bangkok, Thailand, collapsed, prompting the Thai government to launch an investigation targeting the construction company, a subsidiary of a Chinese state-owned enterprise.
A building under construction collapses in Bangkok, Thailand, due to a strong earthquake in Myanmar. Screenshot from X (formerly Twitter)
On the 30th, local media such as the Bangkok Post and The Nation reported that Thai Prime Minister Pattongtan Chinnawat instructed the Department of Public Works and Town & Country Planning under the Ministry of Interior to form an expert committee to thoroughly investigate the incident and report the findings within a week. Prime Minister Pattongtan pointed out that, although other existing buildings and construction sites in Bangkok?located 1,000 km away from the earthquake epicenter?did not suffer casualties, only this particular building collapsed.
Prime Minister Pattongtan especially emphasized that the committee should investigate the building’s design, the design approval agency, and the approval process to identify the cause of the collapse. Before entering politics, he managed the real estate business of the Chinnawat family. He remarked, "In my construction industry experience, I have never seen such a problem," and added, "Since a significant portion of the construction budget was allocated and the completion deadline was extended, a thorough investigation is necessary."
A building under construction collapsed in Bangkok, Thailand due to the Myanmar earthquake. Photo by Yonhap News.
The construction of this building was undertaken by a local joint venture of 'China Railway No.10 Bureau Group' (Zhongtie 10th Bureau), a subsidiary of the massive Chinese state-owned enterprise China Railway Engineering Corporation (CREC), and 'Italian-Thai Development.' Although the structural framework of the building was completed by the end of March last year, only this building collapsed, raising strong suspicions of design or construction defects. The British daily The Telegraph conveyed opinions from some experts who pointed out that the building’s flat slab structure?where floor slabs are directly connected to vertical columns without beams such as girders?and Bangkok’s soft soil were problematic. However, some experts also noted that it is premature to conclude that the fault lies with the construction company or others.
A building under construction collapses in Bangkok, Thailand, due to a strong earthquake in Myanmar. Screenshot from X (formerly Twitter)
Earlier, on the 28th, a magnitude 7.7 earthquake near Mandalay in central Myanmar caused the collapse of a 33-story Thai Audit Office building under construction near the popular Bangkok tourist spot Chatuchak Market. So far, 10 people have died and 79 are missing. The building had been constructed over the past three years with a budget exceeding 2 billion baht (approximately 86.7 billion KRW).
Meanwhile, the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) reported that the epicenter was located 33 km southwest of Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city with a population of 1.2 million, and 248 km north-northwest of the capital Naypyidaw, with a focal depth of 10 km. The earthquake’s tremors were also detected in neighboring Thailand and China’s Yunnan Province.
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