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skjain.iitk General Sponsor
Joined: 26 Jan 2003 Posts: 104
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Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2004 4:47 am Post subject: State of construction |
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Dear Colleagues:
It was shocking to hear on TV last night that part of a building of Times of India under construction in Ahmedabad collapsed, possibly killing many workers. It is not only tragic for the families of the dead and injured but is also a sober reminder to all of us that all is not well with our construction industry.
Only last year, a part of another commercial building under construction in a prominent area of Ahmedabad had collapsed.
Both the above buildings must have been designed by "structural engineers", constructed by "contractors" and supervised by the "construction engineers". Hence, the responsibility lies with the professionals associated with the construction industry.
Incidents like these should make us resolve to work harder for the upliftment of our profession and following action points come to mind:
a) We resolve to do the best professional job regardless of how much is the fees. There are no excuses allowed to a surgeon for doing an unsafe surgery just because he agreed to a lower fees from a patient.
b) We stop complaining about other stackholders to express our disappointments and frustrations. We must focus on what WE can do rather than what others should do.
c) We refuse to undertake assignments for which we are not competent.
d) We help other professional colleauges and youngsters including students in learning to be good professionals.
e) We assign a fraction of our time and income for our own professional growth and the improvement of the profession generally.
This is my emotional outburst and is not meant to be a sermon to colleagues on SEFI, since I feel rather disturbed with the incident. I know that most of us must feel quite agitated with such incidents.
Best regards,
Sudhir Jain IIT Kanpur
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hari.kumar at undp.org Guest
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Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2004 6:12 am Post subject: State of construction |
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Dear Sir -and Colleagues,
It is really shocking that this has happened-and that too in Ahmedabad. I wanted to read more about this incident and did a Google news search for 'building collapse'-which was even more 'shaking'..in the last twelve days we seem to have had collapses in Gwalior,Jodhpur and Bangalore..What lessons have we learnt from Jan 26, 2001?
Hari
People feared trapped under collapsed Gujarat building Tuesday November 9 2004 00:00 IST IANS AHMEDABAD: Several people were feared trapped inside a press building which collapsed here on Monday night, police said.
No loss of life was immediately reported in the collapse that occurred around 9:50 p.m. in Satellite City area. The building was undergoing repairs.
Police said they rescued some 30-40 workers and admitted them to hospital.
"We rescued some 30-40 workers and rushed them to hospital. There must be some more people trapped under the collapsed building," police said.
Other sources, however, said there were some 100 workers inside the building when the tragedy occurred.
Gwalior building collapse claims one life, injured 12: [India News]: Gwalior, Oct. 25 : At least one labourer was killed and dozens more are feared buried alive as an under construction college building collpased in Bhopal today Panic spread through Gwalior city's main science college as its new three-storey lab wing, which was nearing completion, crumbled. Window panes of several nearby buildings were also damaged.
Rescue workers and locals worked at frenzied pace to dig out any survivors and rushed the injured to hospitals.
"At least 40-45 labourers were working in the building when this mishap took place. This was an under construction portion. Some labourers are trapped inside. According to our reports, one person has died and four are injured," city superintendent of police Jagdish Prasad said.
"I was upstairs when all of a sudden something broke and I fell straight down. We were 40 labourers working and I believe more than 20 have been injured," added Damu, an injured.
Preliminary reports say the contractor could have been using substandard building material and police have launched a manhunt for him.
An enquiry has been ordered into the collapse.(ANI)
Five die in building collapse (07 Nov 2004-Deccan Herald)
The BMP has suspended the jurisdictional AEE and Works Engineer for their failure to check violation of the plan sanction by the building owners.
BANGALORE, DHNS:
Five labourers were killed and 15 injured when the centring of a commercial complex under construction collapsed at Vasanthappa Block 5th Main Road in R T Nagar police limits on Saturday morning. Violation of the plan sanction and lack of safety measures at the construction site are cited as reasons for the mishap. The deceased have been identified as Perumal (35), a mason from Dharmapuri, Raja (36), Vadivelu (30), Mohammed Shaffi (2 of Kumaraswamy Layout, and Dharma (40), a bar bender.
Another labourer, 25-year-old Dharma, was severely injured and has been admitted to M S Ramaiah Hospital, while the others injured, Dharmaswamy, Saravana, Krishna, Satyavelu, Periswamy, Ramu, Selvam, Swamy and Adilakshmi are being treated at a private hospital.
According to eye-witnesses and police, the building's centring came crashing down around 10:30 am and 15 labourers were trapped in the rubble.
A few others who were working at the site ran out and escaped with minor injuries. The concrete pouring work was in process for the first floor of the complex when the mishap occurred.
Hearing screams, people rushed to the rescue of the victims. They pulled out eight to 10 people from the heap of concrete and debris. Fire force personnel rescued the remaining people and removed the bodies.
Around 35 labourers, from around Papparpatti in Dharmapuri district in Tamil Nadu, were working at the site where businessman Sai Jaganmohan Reddy is constructing a commercial complex. They have been working at the site for some one-and-a-half months.
The R T Nagar police have registered a case against the owner and the contractor.
'Owners responsible'
The Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) has blamed the owners, Mr Sai Jaganmohan Reddy and Ms Tara Reddy, for the collapse.
During a spot inspection, Bangalore Mahanagara Palike Commissioner Jyothiramalingam, Special Commissioner Subhash Chandra and Chief Engineer Rame Gowda found that the owners were violating the plan sanction in the construction of the building.
"The centring has collapsed as the owners have not taken any safety measures. There is no relation between the building collapse and the plan sanction," an official press release said.
"The deaths of labourers are due to the negligence of the building owners. "Hence the plan sanction accorded to them has been withdrawn," the press release added.
Mayor P R Ramesh also visited the spot.
Officials suspended
For failing to check the owners from flouting rules, the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike has suspended the Hebbal Sub-division Assistant Executive Engineer and Works Inspector with immediate effect.
The Assistant Engineer, who was on deputation, has been sent back to his parent department.
The architect's licence has also been cancelled.
Nine labourers hurt in building collapse at Jodhpur: [India News]: Jaipur, Oct 29 : Nine labourers were today injured when the second floor of a building on which they were working collapsed at Boranada in Jodhpur rural, a senior police official said.
The injured were admitted to the Mahatma Gandhi hospital, the Superintendent of Police (rural) Vishal Bausal told PTI on telephone.
Some other labourers received minor bruises but they did not turn up for treatement, Bausal said.
A case has been registered against the owner of the building and the
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James_Cohen SEFI Regulars
Joined: 26 Jan 2003 Posts: 32
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Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2004 2:42 pm Post subject: State of construction |
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Dear Colleagues:
As an engineer, the bulk of my work is related to building failures. By "failures" are included loss of function, not just collapses. I have worked on behalf of contractors, designers, owners, developers and government agencies. Collapses in the United States are, unfortunately, not an infrequent occurrence.
Possible contributing issues include design flaws (rare), construction errors or material supply faults. However, this does not necessarily indicate the root cause of the problem, which may lie with the inspecting agencies, testing agencies, certifying agencies, weather anomalies, contract problems (such as delegation of authority, owner/designer/contractor/subcontractor interfaces), government requirements or, in the case of new construction, owner instructions. Until all the facts are gathered and analyzed, it is premature to conclude a fault with any particular group. This can often take years due to the volumes of documents which may have been accumulated on a large project which need to be reviewed. At the end, not only the cause, but the actual fault, may remain unclear.
I have also found that news reports are not the best indicator of the cause of a collapse. This has been more evident with the scale of the failure. It is my experience that the larger the failure the greater the tendency for the news to "fill in the gaps."
James Cohen, PE James Cohen Consulting, PC http://expertpages.com/jccpc
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anandrshah9 SEFI Member
Joined: 26 Jan 2003 Posts: 13
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Posted: Wed Nov 10, 2004 2:47 am Post subject: State of construction |
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Respected jain sir,
As u have mentioned about both the buildings must have designed by " structural engineer " & constructed by " contractor ". But in our profession, any one can become contractor without having degree or proper techincal knowledge of civil engineering in depth. There are many private & goverment contractor are there doing such. And still after 2001 eathquake and so many workshops in some of the major buildings consulting practise standard is the same. Where u can find, 6 dia - stirrups at 200 / 225 c/c in main columns through out( where spans are 20 ft to 30 ft) and same 6 dia mild steel in slab too. It is there because of so called " expereince of designing of such things of 100 times of more". I think the line " the buidling is designed for latest earthquake code " is there in brochure of organizer just as a selling point nothing else, not as really done in some of the cases.
Regards,
Anand
Quote: | Message From skjain@iitk.ac.in Reply-To: general@sefindia.org To: anandrshah9@hotmail.com Subject: State of construction Date: Tue Nov 9 10:17:13 2004
Dear Colleagues:
It was shocking to hear on TV last night that part of a building of Times of India under construction in Ahmedabad collapsed, possibly killing many workers. It is not only tragic for the families of the dead and injured but is also a sober reminder to all of us that all is not well with our construction industry.
Only last year, a part of another commercial building under construction in a prominent area of Ahmedabad had collapsed.
Both the above buildings must have been designed by "structural engineers", constructed by "contractors" and supervised by the "construction engineers". Hence, the responsibility lies with the professionals associated with the construction industry.
Incidents like these should make us resolve to work harder for the upliftment of our profession and following action points come to mind:
a) We resolve to do the best professional job regardless of how much is the fees. There are no excuses allowed to a surgeon for doing an unsafe surgery just because he agreed to a lower fees from a patient.
b) We stop complaining about other stackholders to express our disappointments and frustrations. We must focus on what WE can do rather than what others should do.
c) We refuse to undertake assignments for which we are not competent.
d) We help other professional colleauges and youngsters including students in learning to be good professionals.
e) We assign a fraction of our time and income for our own professional growth and the improvement of the profession generally.
This is my emotional outburst and is not meant to be a sermon to colleagues on SEFI, since I feel rather disturbed with the incident. I know that most of us must feel quite agitated with such incidents.
Best regards,
Sudhir Jain IIT Kanpur
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kalyan SEFI Member
Joined: 26 Jan 2003 Posts: 7
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Posted: Wed Nov 10, 2004 3:58 am Post subject: State of construction |
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Dear Dr. Sudhir:
I share your agony about failures of CE professionals to perform as professionals. The only way all this is going to change is when the professionally licensed engineers are allowed to carry out all the professional activities.
Only a week ago the CEI conducted a one day workshop to discuss Professional Licensing of engineer’s bill. Although this discussion has gone on for decades I see that all the professional societies of the country are coming together to lobby for it and it is expected that the bill may be passed before the next winter session. This however is only the first step. Particularly in the early stages many who are not professionally capable, who have been responsible for such collapses may also get the professional license on the basis of the grand father clause. One need not despair. In case of unprofessional work such engineers can be delicensed. Further, the PE will require continuing education to get a renewal and hence we can expect all those who have not upgraded their knowledge beyond M=w*l*l/8 will all have to update their knowledge. This will require a vast expansion of continuing education programmes to be conducted by professional societies and accreditation of these programmes. This is where we have a great role to play.
Recently we had a seminar on structural failures with our students and research scholars. The amount of enthusiasm shown was very high. We need to train fresh graduates in the professional side of engineering also in the educational institutions, until the professional socieites and experienced engineers can speed up their activities to take up this role. I find that very many consulting organisations do not have middle level and senior engineers who are willing to spend guiding young engineers, since they are busy with business end, getting works. There are a whole lot of young engineers who think that once they can model a structure using computer software, the result they get is all right and sacrosanct. There is a whole lot that the young engineers need to learn beyond their BE/ME degree to become PE, which experienced and knowledgeable engineers and professional associations have train them in. I hope that with PE license become mandatory we can look forward to a more professional approach to engineering. Let us all work together to achieve it.
V. Kalanaraman
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mc.upadhyay1 ...
Joined: 26 Jan 2003 Posts: 134
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Posted: Wed Nov 10, 2004 5:35 am Post subject: State of construction |
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Hello Prof. Kalyanraman is right. Licensing of Structural Engineer will definitely improve the situation. When the Unethical Engineers have to sign their drawings. It will prevent them to take work on terms such as 1.5 kg/sft; thin columns & so on.
Mukesh Upadhyay
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Rabinder Shekher General Sponsor
Joined: 26 Jan 2003 Posts: 266 Location: Katra Vaishno Devi J&K
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Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2004 1:20 pm Post subject: State of construction |
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Dear Sudhir, I am shocked at this news but you are right that we are least concerned about the safty measures, If the accident is due to faulty design or workmanship, that is the responsibility of the designer or contractor but we engineers are always responsible for the safe construction. We must get complete planning before we actually start the construction. I find that most of the times we donot devote much time to study the drawings and possible areas of danger and rather start the work in hurry. Shekher
On Tue, 09 Nov 2004 skjain@iitk.ac.in wrote :
Quote: | Dear Colleagues:
It was shocking to hear on TV last night that part of a building of Times of India under construction in Ahmedabad collapsed, possibly killing many workers. It is not only tragic for the families of the dead and injured but is also a sober reminder to all of us that all is not well with our construction industry.
Only last year, a part of another commercial building under construction in a prominent area of Ahmedabad had collapsed.
Both the above buildings must have been designed by "structural engineers", constructed by "contractors" and supervised by the "construction engineers". Hence, the responsibility lies with the professionals associated with the construction industry.
Incidents like these should make us resolve to work harder for the upliftment of our profession and following action points come to mind:
a) We resolve to do the best professional job regardless of how much is the fees. There are no excuses allowed to a surgeon for doing an unsafe surgery just because he agreed to a lower fees from a patient.
b) We stop complaining about other stackholders to express our disappointments and frustrations. We must focus on what WE can do rather than what others should do.
c) We refuse to undertake assignments for which we are not competent.
d) We help other professional colleauges and youngsters including students in learning to be good professionals.
e) We assign a fraction of our time and income for our own professional growth and the improvement of the profession generally.
This is my emotional outburst and is not meant to be a sermon to colleagues on SEFI, since I feel rather disturbed with the incident. I know that most of us must feel quite agitated with such incidents.
Best regards,
Sudhir Jain IIT Kanpur
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