The Yun Men Tsui Ti (雲門翠堤) commercial and residential complex, the building most seriously damaged in Tuesday’s magnitude 6.0 Hualien earthquake, is now the focus of an investigation to determine if human error was behind the partial collapse of four structures in downtown Hualien.
Hualien District Prosecutors’ Office head prosecutor Wang Yi-jen (王怡仁) said his office has retrieved the building construction licenses, building use permits and applications for alterations for all four of the buildings that suffered serious damage in the earthquake.
The buildings are the Yun Men Tsui Ti building, the Marshal Hotel (統帥飯店) and two apartment buildings.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The Yun Men Tsui Ti building is the focus of the investigation, because of the number of deaths — nine out of the 12 confirmed — attributed to its partial collapse, Wang said.
Civil engineers have said that the method used to connect the building’s steel bars likely contributed to the serious casualties reported at the site.
Architecture experts have also raised questions over the building’s receding facade and the ground-floor arcade, which was taller than it should have been, as it was used for stores.
Photo: CNA
According to construction regulations, the steel bars used in constructing the building should have been 1.3 times their actual lengths so they could be layered upon one another to enhance the building’s structural integrity, but they were not assembled in this manner, Tainan Structural Engineer Association director-general Huang Chia-jui (黃嘉瑞) and association member Wang Wu-lung (王武龍) said.
“As a result, the columns snapped like ropes,” Huang said, while Wang added that the way the steel bars snapped appeared “suspicious.”
By itself, each connection point between steel bars is weak, so the legal construction method is to make several connections converge, thereby enhancing the sturdiness of beams and columns, and Yun Men Tsui Ti had “clearly fallen short” in this regard, Huang said.
Based on a preliminary review of the building, the steel bars were not layered, which highlights problems in its safety, Executive Yuan Public Construction Commission Chairman Wu Tze-cheng (吳澤成) said.
However, the disproportionately heavy upper levels of the building likely caused the columns to give out, he said.
Yun Men Tsui Ti, like all other residential buildings in its proximity, sits on the Milun fault, but was the only one that collapsed during the earthquake, which raised questions over its construction quality, National Taiwan University geology professor Chen Wen-shan (陳文山) said.
The building collapsed in a roughly north-to-south direction, but it was the steel bars facing the north that were broken and exposed, indicating that that the building’s construction was likely flawed, New Taipei City Professional Civil Engineers Association chairman James Yu (余烈) said.
Additional reporting by CNA
LONG FLIGHT: The jets would be flown by US pilots, with Taiwanese copilots in the two-seat F-16D variant to help familiarize them with the aircraft, the source said The US is expected to fly 10 Lockheed Martin F-16C/D Block 70/72 jets to Taiwan over the coming months to fulfill a long-awaited order of 66 aircraft, a defense official said yesterday. Word that the first batch of the jets would be delivered soon was welcome news to Taiwan, which has become concerned about delays in the delivery of US arms amid rising military tensions with China. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the initial tranche of the nation’s F-16s are rolling off assembly lines in the US and would be flown under their own power to Taiwan by way
CHIP WAR: The new restrictions are expected to cut off China’s access to Taiwan’s technologies, materials and equipment essential to building AI semiconductors Taiwan has blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), dealing another major blow to the two companies spearheading China’s efforts to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chip technologies. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Administration has included Huawei, SMIC and several of their subsidiaries in an update of its so-called strategic high-tech commodities entity list, the latest version on its Web site showed on Saturday. It did not publicly announce the change. Other entities on the list include organizations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as companies in China, Iran and elsewhere. Local companies need
CRITICISM: It is generally accepted that the Straits Forum is a CCP ‘united front’ platform, and anyone attending should maintain Taiwan’s dignity, the council said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it deeply regrets that former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) echoed the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “one China” principle and “united front” tactics by telling the Straits Forum that Taiwanese yearn for both sides of the Taiwan Strait to move toward “peace” and “integration.” The 17th annual Straits Forum yesterday opened in Xiamen, China, and while the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) local government heads were absent for the first time in 17 years, Ma attended the forum as “former KMT chairperson” and met with Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Huning (王滬寧). Wang
OBJECTS AT SEA: Satellites with synthetic-aperture radar could aid in the detection of small Chinese boats attempting to illegally enter Taiwan, the space agency head said Taiwan aims to send the nation’s first low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite into space in 2027, while the first Formosat-8 and Formosat-9 spacecraft are to be launched in October and 2028 respectively, the National Science and Technology Council said yesterday. The council laid out its space development plan in a report reviewed by members of the legislature’s Education and Culture Committee. Six LEO satellites would be produced in the initial phase, with the first one, the B5G-1A, scheduled to be launched in 2027, the council said in the report. Regarding the second satellite, the B5G-1B, the government plans to work with private contractors
RSS