New World Hotel Collapse.

Hehe, i feel so good after today. I presented during tutorial today and it wasn't that bad. And i'm free from presentations! For RE1103 module at least. Heh.

Anyway last friday, the lecture topic was on maintenance management, so the lecturer showed us a video on the collapse of the Hotel New World in 1986.

At first i was clueless about such an event. Maybe i've heard of it before, but i didn't even bother to get to know more about it. And this lecturer would always play a video related to the topic she's teaching at the end of the lecture. Usually i'll be listening, then halfway my mind just drifts off. But not for this one. The incident was too heart-wrenching. Too bone chilling scary. Because there's so many warnings for the people to leave the building or to get it maintained, but the owner of the building and the contractors are either just too ignorant of the situation or they didn't even care. And 33 lives were lost like that.
:(

And it's just a SIX storey building. Nowadays it's all high rise buildings, can you imagine what would happen if any one collapses? Unthinkable. :/

I was so interested in this incident that i came home to Google more on it. Lol. Though after watching the video that was showed in school i almost cried because in this video they focused on this female named Angelia and this male who were colleagues. They were trapped near by each other, where they can just talk and have a conversation. Then this male was losing hope and was pessimistic about the situation...

Male: I'm going to die! By the time the rescuers come i'll be dead!

Angelia: No, help is on the way, we are going to survive.

 Male: Angelia, if the rescuers are here, can you allow them to save me first?

Angelia: Okay, I'll ask them to save you first.

Yeah, then the rescuers managed to get near them by tunneling through the debris. However the route was blocked again because the whole thing was unstable.. In the end, the male was saved, but Angelia...she didn't make it.
;'(
How not to cry you tell me?

The video my teacher showed us was a channel 5, 'True Courage' episode. But i couldn't find it on the internet. But i managed to find another version of the collapse. It's more lengthy, and also reveals the reason behind the collapse. But the victims they focused on were another 2 different people who both managed to survive. If you're interested, here's the video..

And if you're lazy to spend 50mins watching it...

This video basically says that the warnings the day before the collapse were a large crack on one of the nightclub's pillar and a crack on the mirror. The nightclub owner was worried and called in the owner of the building but the person just dismissed it by hammering in some useless planks. The next day, the pillar in the carpark also had serious cracks, but the contractors working on it (by hammering planks again -.-) said it wasn't a big issue. Yeah, so many warnings and everyone just dismissed it. And then they went to discover the real reason behind this collapse. It wasn't because an explosion which could be possible since a few years before, the building experienced a poisonous gas leak. It wasn't because of the added load of the facade of the building and air-conditioning at the rooftop. It wasn't because of the underground mrt tunnel construction. It wasn't because the strength of the materials couldn't support the weight. It wasn't because the site that the building was built on was once a swamp land.

It was because of a "schoolboy mistake". The calculation actually missed out the dead load (weight of the building itself). They only calculated the live load (temporary load Eg furniture and people). So the building was actually going to collapse sooner or later.

That's the national geographic version. I discussed this with my parents (lol, too intrigued by this topic) My dad claimed that it's because the nightclub remove the main pillar as many customers complained that it was blocking their view of the stage. And because of the lack of support, the collapse happened. I argued with him and told him the National Geographic version. After all, National Geographic cannot anyhow spun stories right...Then he stated that it's because they have to come out with a valid conclusion, but since everything was in debris already, it might not be true. So he insisted he's right.

Lol, so the fault lies on either one of these 3..
1. The owner of the building who bo-chaped when informed about the large cracks
(based on the video shown by my lecturer)
2. The person who missed out the dead load entirely in his calculation
(based on the National Geographic version)
3. The nightclub, removing the important pillar just for good business.
(based on my dad's version)
And damn it, they should be really guilty if they are the one who cause the collapse. Because they managed to avert the incident since the nightclub was empty when it happened.

Whatever is the case, it's a lesson learnt..