What could be the cause of building collapse in George? 

I was born and raised in George where my dad worked as a building inspector from the late 70's to early 2000's. I distinctly remember visiting building sites, with my dad during holidays . You would often see a site stand still for a week or two after every foundation/slab was cast. During this period the slab would be kept wet to slow curing and keep temperatures down in the concrete. It no longer happens.

Prof has said it! "...the lower levels of human behavior has no bottom..."! I put it this way. There is nothing about the behaviour of human beings that surprises me! "Profit before people!"

The professor's response is what you'd expect from a wise professional and academic. The host's question deserves serious consideration.

As a Director of a major construction company i can with evidence also bring under the Prof the following information - an ex student qualified Engineer from a Cape Town Varsity applied to us for an engineer position - after my investigation of her qualification i found that her maths marks in matric were 27% and science 32% - I contact the the head of that dept and ask him how is it possible that with this marks did she ever qualified to enter an engineering degree - i still await a response from them - these problem as George is going to happens more in the future with the Varsities that push incompetent Professionals In the market

The professor make much sense.

Emeritus Prof Billim, one of the best in the country

Unqualified Construction Company Owners questionably getting their horrendous building plans passed. Whosoever passed the plans should be held accountable also, because this is their work. People entrusted with keeping South Africans safe, are bending the rules for one reason or the other, mostly incompetence or kickbacks. Now people are dead, must the responsible parties be allowed to go on have a hotdog and go on to build other condemned buildings?

My initial thoughts were and I stick to them. Poor workmanship, fly by night Contractors who just wants to make a quick buck and vanish. Quality control standards was bypassed and things got signed off without the proper inspections. Now it came and bit them in the ass. Unfortunate for all the victims and families involved. Condolences

Try the construction mafia cutting corners on materials costs and total incompetence

What happened to SABS approved material? ..

Lot of buildings going up fast in our town....its really scary...

has the contractor LIATEL owner been found, and interviewed??? where is Theuns and what does he have to say for himself and his actions???

So it was a catastrophic failure. Well said Prof. Good assessment. Its painful, when speed and pressure is put on a Contractor, thereby compromising quality and ultimate safety.

my heart goes out to everyone who is assisting to get our brothers and sisters ❤

Build with proper ratio of cement, with qualified civil engineers.

Accelerated construction, lack of back propping, and the urgency for occupation have killed so many people.

There are two reasons for such a collapse: 1. Poor Structural Design - which is the responsibility of the structural engineer, and 2. Poor Construction - which, in a catastrophic failure such as this, could be the cutting of corners on steel used in the floor/roof slabs and columns, and/or the grade/quality of the concrete used. Another potentially fatal practice is the rotation of floor/roof slab support scaffolding for use in higher floor/roof slabs, meaning that support scaffolding on lower floor/roof slabs is removed for use higher up in the structure to save on scaffolding hiring costs, but if removed before the concrete has reached the required strength, this practice can lead to a catastrophic failure of the now unsupported (scaffolding removed) lower floor/roof slab, which now has the full weight of the freshly cast floor/roof slab above transferred onto the unsupported slab through the support scaffolding of the upper floor/roof slab, which happens to be a FAR higher dead load than what the floor/roof slabs are designed for (ie. humans and furniture). I'm not a betting man, but if I was asked to hazard a guess, it would be THIS: the removal of scaffolding on lower floor/roof slabs, possibly combined with skimping (cutting back to save money) on reinforcing steel in the floor/roof slabs and columns, and possibly the use of low grade concrete (again, to save money). A video I watched shows NO top reinforcing steel in the collapsed slab, as well as completely 'clean' reinforcing bars, a sure sign that the concrete was under-strength. RIP to those poor souls lost, and condolences to all the families who have lost loved ones. NOTE: This is speculation ONLY based on what I have seen!

Well said Professor a man of knowledge

Good morning well spoken prof....it's all about rushing building work.....I still believe any brickwork must stand to rest it's not about overnight and continuing next day.....

Key word QUALITY.

For sure there must be investigating the people who work for the municipality and have to approve initial design, intermittent inspections and quality testing of concrete etc. So heads must roll surely?

Were the slabs tied over the colours or not? This has happened before. The slab slides down the columns.

When was this building completed

Looks like a sub-economic apartment block where everything is done cheap and nasty. If there wasn't any obvious signs beforehand, such as structural cracks, creaking and cracking sounds, doors beginning to not close etc and pipes starting to leak then I'd speculate that there was a catastrophic failure in the foundations.

Shoddy workmanship and inferior materials.

In a nut shell 1. design checks were they done by competent engineers and passed. 2. Contractors credentials and competence checked by owners and engineers. 3. Were strict safety measures and standards in place, practised and adhered to.4. Were the relevant quality inspections done on materials before construction commenced and approved by engineers. 5. Site management and supervision and Quality inspector competency checked and approved. Any incompatence found in any of the above could of played a part in collapse of this building. Speculativly Regarding Construction mafia, demanding payment of up to 30% of contract value, it may lead to contractor cutting corners during construction regarding quality and sans specifications

Nothing is unfortunate it's stupidity

My dad studied at wits, was a qs with g5, g5 is now gone. I audit construction sites... Shortcuts.

What are the responsibilities of the Building Inspectors? 😢.

I loved studying at Wits back in the day

Apparently the plans were changed quite late to build another floor

In my prayers and thoughts

As the Prof says, there's a possibility of a combination of problems at play, not just one. Hubrous hasn't been mentioned as one. Well, it's not actually a practise as such, but it allows a dangerous attitude to prevail that works contra best practises.

Where did they buy the concrete and cement?????

Imported and locally produced cement are subject to regulatory testing in South Africa. The Prof should have his facts in place.

The question will remain, are all the employment involved in this construction corporate and trained in the position they work? Because the big problem in South Africa today are that people who trained for how many years doesn't get jobs cause they suddenly need matric. I dont see that matricilants are trained to construct buildings or any skilled work whatsoever. How many lives are still going to take before people realize what going on here

Where is the SABS these days?

Unqualified builders

There are some serious protocols to be followed when a building is constructed. Firstly the structural engineer is responsible for the design of the structural elements such as foundations, floor slabs and columns. Secondly he is also responsible to inspect the works such as the steel specification, concrete strength etc. as well as the time schedule when support scaffolding may be removed. I'm not making any accusations but neglecting these issues can lead to this type of tragedy. The council which approved the plans cannot be held accountable because they take no responsibility for structural integrity. Therefore I can only find 2 parties accountable for this accident and that is the structural design engineer and the main contractor. If there was a project manager full time on site he could also be questioned when it comes to materials being stacked on areas causing overloading.

Not enoughf drying time for concrete and removing seports to soon. Can be mixeture of cement was to little building to fast upper level witch can cause concrete slab to give way colap s. My opinion

100% prof

Why deleted my comment?

Blah blah, we all know it was just incompetence

Everyone in the comments have valid points, but dont forget the architects and designers and ultimately the client that owns the build needs to be blamed too, they constantly change designs and modify plans and then still push builders and contractors to perform and push to complete on time, and what happens then, whats the reward for being pushed, nothing but a nice mail saying that late penalties will be enforced, which isn’t a couple of hundred rands per day, its thousands. So that gets pushed onto contractors and then shortcuts are taken, is the concrete slab cured correctly, no sir, but it should hold! The world is in a rush, good things come to those who wait, but not anymore and definitely not to those waiting for their family member’s to come home. May God bless them and their loved ones under that mountain of stress, impatience and disappointment. I would like to see the architects and clients on site and helping people out of the dirt they put them in, maybe their eyes will open.

IN MY OPINION BEE CAN BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE

Sorry but I do not care if an expert or professor is speculating what the cause could be, the fact is that, it is still a speculation. What he has raised are ifs, buts, apparently's, could be that...all of which are still speculations and rumours. The fact is that there are checks and balances to be used to emsure that inferior material is never used and that happens throughout the construction process...At the end of the day, someone is responsible and the only way to identify that someone is to first conclude what the cause of the collapse was

A 5th floor was added???

This event is clear structural and specifications defect...overall human expertise defect ...profiteering resulting in substandard and deadly buildings

I raise my eyebrows because the problems prof identifies don't adequately point to the probable wrongdoing from the people who were likely to make money on this structure… Blaming the quality of the cement, a worker putting water on some cement or driving a truck on the site, workers building too fast, workers being poorly trained and not properly supervised. Amazing! What about the chance of commercial interests overriding protocols and not being willing to take warnings from concerned workers? Watch the News24 interview of a constructor who was in sight of you and is interested in a less theoretical explanation. May God rest the souls who died 🙏🏿

Very sad what happened?? At the same breath...think of it...the lives that departed were sacrifices to the more or worse scenario if this incident took place after occupation!!?? It would have catastrophic...things happen in this country

Collect minutes of every site meeting..any piece of paper relevant to the construction...vos ...site diaries...concrete cube records ...clients instructions...foundation tests. In court where this will end up anything is admissable as evidence.

We can not wait time is money short cut prof is quite correckt.

How can they just add another floor,once the first floors are cast surely another floor cant be added,lots of investigations,lots of shenanigans go on with projects today,wasnt there a collapse in kwazulu a few yrs back

Time lines, cost savings, rush rush rush.. this is the results

If a design and construction flaw, will the whole truth ever emerge ? The blame game will cause much confusion ? Obfuscations ? Cover-ups. Greed? Short-cuts? Race for time to finish the project as indicated and promised ? Competence, training and oversight of construction workers. Yes, sabotage crossed my mind as well. This will not be a surprise. The construction mafia wanting to send a message to all new construction projects, especially with the truly sad loss of multiple lives and the consequent brand, image and financial implications ? Greed is such an awful social disease.

Price before quality

Look at the Rebars diameter.

If you watch closely, you could see dust cloud blown from beneath prior whole structure collapsed. Indication that the failure came from ground level, suspect could be poor structure load distribution. 2, From one worker interviewed, the pillar spacing at ground level was too wide. That makes sense as the building collapsed vertically/inward. 3, From the photos of the building as the construction was undergoing, the building was covered in bricks, with few large window spaces. This old architect design that rendered the buildings super heavy. Hence nowadays budings use glass and aluminium to cover the building and partition the rest of the interior. That reduces significant weight.

That is the tesult of. Computer !!! Ppl dont know and think wrong !!

If it's said serious neglect why isn't the owners brought to justice fast. An expert has said it. What r the police waiting for

The fact that it collapsed straight down to me is suspicious.

Sabotage crossed my mind.

Cheap labour costs lives. Extremely responsible.

What surprises most are the few rescue workers and little heavy duty lifting and removing machines on this emergency operation for a 5 storey building collapse involving 81 trapped persons.At that slow speed its going to take several weeks to rescue and recover.😢 It's like the rescue operation chiefs already decided the fate of the workers under the rubble. 😢

Its ANC!

Most people ignore natural forces, like gravity. This phenomenon is a attracting, downward force. There's a relationship between mass and gravity. - Gravity is the attractive pull between two objects that have mass. The strength of gravity is directly proportional to the amount of mass of each object. In other words, the larger the objects, the greater the gravitational attraction between them.

Sabotage? Construction mafia? WTF?

Poor workmanship and Materials

Not before 1994 i can promise you

Unqualified its that simple then you wonder how these people get the tender 😮so many people died due to corners being cut

So in other words BEEeeee.....😢😢

They don't use artisans to build the buildings anymore this happens when they used cheap labour

Bad workmanship! Bad supervisors!

Time equals money. Money equals greed

let's hope this is not the start of chinese type "tofu dreg" building methods.

ANC and the building Mafia.

Construction Mafia...bad workmanship and substandard quality materials... Sea sand instead of proper concrete

❤

The question is realy was the risk really identified? Was the geotechnical study done to determine the profile of the geology and together with that the hydrological study. Environmental impact assessment conducted or not or at least a Basic Environmentlal impact assessment by a registered Environmental Impact Practitioner. Was there an environmental management plan in place and was it managed on a daily basis, Was the SHE officials SACPCMP certified or nor? The Overall EMP shoul;d stipulate emergency response in such an event and how to deal with it. Most probably from my experience risk assessments on construction sites are done in the office and not at the workplace WHICH IS SIMPLY WRONG!!!!! SHE file was it a life file meaning updated daily or as per frequency stipuled by legislation. A lot of foreigners on the site what hapenned to the principle of sourcing employment from the local communities. Some questions to be answered Condolences to the families and relatives that were affected by this.

Greedy people at the top don't care about normal humans, afterall is us ♟ that makes the Kings🤴 filthy rich!!

Sabotage!!

A truck parking on one of the slabs/levels ????? Why and how would a truck get up there. Silly comment. These interviews should be done with practising Structural Eng's.

BEE!!!

Typical South Africa since 1994

Cheap and unqualified people used. Normal real builders use Strength of Material science etc. Municipality took short cuts. Where are the real Builders?????

I very much doubt a "design flaw"... the prof should know better to even make such a comment if he is not familiar with the design drawings. Councils takes months to approve building plans with all their bureaucratic red tape with the result that the lost time in revenue and profits are under tremendous pressure to complete a development of this nature in a shorter time span. There are many factors that could play-in on a sudden collapse.

Cut to the chaste! What has a BBBEE contractor ever built that exemplifies safety, quality and reliability to name just a few. Black's can only build a mud hut and tin shack without structural consequences. They have to be supervised all the time.

The properly qualified people in the building industry need to used, ie - Architects and NOT Architectural Techicians or Draftsmen; Engineers and not Engineering Technicians!!!

Again a civil engineer. Gosh these news agencies are thick. You need commentary from a Structural Engineer!! Not civils

BUT WATCH THE ANC BLAME APARTHEID 🤣

Hope it's not another ANC sponsored CADRE contractor who is a Mafia buddy. Like SODI in the Free State....

Construction mafia and illicit cigarette trade