Two construction cranes on top of the Taipei Financial Center fell from the 56th story on Sunday, hitting part of the building's steel skeleton on the way and killing several workers. The truss of one crane fell onto a road adjacent to the construction site, destroying some vehicles and causing several injuries. It was the biggest incident stemming from Sunday's earthquake.
The Taipei Financial Center is designed to be a 101-story building with a steel skeleton structure. Super-strong concrete -- able to withstand 10,000lbs of pressure per square inch -- is also poured into 20 major steel pillars that rise up to the 62nd floor in order to strengthen the building's horizontal and vertical bearing capacity.
The structure was designed according to strict guidelines and a highly professional, earthquake-resistant design, which was also reviewed by experts from the National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering, based at National Taiwan University. There should be no problem with the building's quake resistance.
Sunday's quake coincided with a period of accelerated construction work on the upper levels of the building. Even though cranes are temporary facilities, they are gradually elevated to higher levels along with construction of the main structure. Wind, earthquake magnitude and crane loads still need to be considered to ensure that the cranes are firmly fixed on the completed structure. Only then can the cranes safely carry units of the steel structure for assembly at higher levels of the building.
This part of the construction process belongs to the construction design. The construction details and procedures should be carefully considered under high safety factors. What went wrong in Sunday's incident still needs to be investigated in-depth.
Although Taiwan has experience in operating tower cranes on the 85-story Tuntex (東帝士) skyscraper in Kaohsiung, construction facilities are yet to be tested by any strong earthquake. The 921 quake also caused the collapse of cranes on the construction site of Hsinchu's Ambassador Hotel and led to casualties. There-fore, the operation of cranes on extremely tall structures, as well as strengthening the earthquake-resistance ability of cranes, should be reviewed soon.
For safety considerations, crane operations have always been restricted in terms of capacity, range and angle of operation. But the impact resulting from the falling of hoisted objects should also be taken into consideration. But when cranes snap and fall to the ground from such a tall structure, the affected area is obviously much wider than the scope of the crane's operation. The degree of seriousness and destruction is relatively grave. Stricter requirements should be set in the future.
Sunday's crane incident should have caused no harm to the main structure, especially the lower levels of the building. The construction company should conduct a full-scale inspection and evaluation of the entire structure. The construction work should not resume until the upper levels of the building are closely inspected and a full review is conducted on construction to be continued at higher levels.
However, since this is a BOT (build, operate and transfer) project, the delayed work will have an affect on investors.
Even though the accident was brought about by natural disasters, I advise that objective and professional third parties be invited to form an investigative task force so as to lessen the disaster impact in order to meet the restriction of safety regulations, answer society's concerns over the safety and quality of the construction and boost investor confidence.
Chern Jenn-chuan is a professor in the department of civil engineering of National Taiwan University.
Translated by Francis Huang and Jackie Lin
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