Bangkok: Of all the high rises in Thailand’s heaving capital, why this one? Other buildings have cracks from Friday’s earthquake and need further inspections. But only this under-construction office tower for Thai bureaucrats is a mound of ruins, entombing dozens of dead and trapped builders.
Thailand’s Deputy Prime Minister, Anutin Charnvirakul, who visited the site on Saturday during rescue efforts, has no firm answer as to why. For that, he has given an investigation committee a seven-day deadline.
A woman is comforted after being informed that her husband had died at the site of a collapsed under construction high-rise building in Bangkok.
A woman is comforted after being informed that her husband had died at the site of a collapsed under construction high-rise building in Bangkok.Credit: AP
He said rescuers had a “golden 72 hours” to save people from the rubble, but that window is fast closing, especially in Bangkok’s sweltering heat – 36 degrees on Saturday.
“Currently, we have enough manpower and resources,” Anutin said. “However, if we are offered technological assistance, we would gladly accept it. We also have support from foreign experts, and many of our rescue workers have been trained by international specialists.”
Anutin did reveal a curious detail about the construction of the building, which was to house the State Audit Office (SAO): it had been so hopelessly delayed that the builder was in danger of being sacked.
The consortium behind the construction is ITD-CREC, Thai media has reported. It includes the China Railway No. 10 company and Italian-Thai development, a construction giant involved in some of the country’s biggest infrastructure projects, but which has also been facing a massive debt crunch.
ITD was involved in an expressway bridge which collapsed while under construction earlier this month, killing six people and injuring 24.
While the COVID-19 pandemic had played a significant role in the delays, “the head of the SAO told me that the office had considered cancelling the contract due to the prolonged construction period, but the incident [earthquake] occurred first,” Anutin said.
The building had recently topped-out at 30 or 33 storeys, depending on the reports, and was set for completion in August, apparently long after the initial, unspecified deadline. This masthead is attempting to reach the consortium for comment.
The skyscraper’s spectacular collapse was captured on mobile phone video, becoming the most emblematic visual of the 7.7 magnitude earthquake that had its epicentre in the information blackhole of military-controlled Myanmar. In that country, more than 1600 are dead, a figure that will certainly rise, possibly by the thousands.
Thailand Structural Engineers Association president Amorn Pimanmas reviewed the footage of the Bangkok collapse and identified several critical failure points, including the elevator shaft, but he could not say which was responsible.“However, one factor that may have caused the collapse is resonance between the soft soil layer and the tall building,” he said.
At least nine workers are dead. The figure for those trapped in the debris has been swinging wildly as authorities cross-check shift records from the builder. The latest count is 78.
Hundreds of rescue workers and support staff from innumerable institutions have amassed at the site, a short stroll from Bangkok’s famous Chatuchak market. Some have not stopped in their efforts. Those recently relieved from their duties were scattered through the staging area sleeping against walls or slumped into their forearms. The fine dust from the building is everywhere not yet trampled by the rushing crews.
They are using sniffer dogs, drones, mobile phone signals to find survivors. Oxygen is also being pumped into the rubble, authorities said.
Amarin K, a salesperson at a glassware shop across the street from the collapse, caught a glance of the then-standing tower as she was trying to protect herself and her young niece from the earthquake’s rocking.
The crane at the top was shaking so violently she had to look away. Then came the sound. Amarin grabbed her niece, locked the cash register and ran.
She was back at work on Saturday, the following day. The metro system and skyrail were open again. Patients and doctors had returned to their hospitals. All but a few hundred people had gone back to their residential buildings. Notwithstanding it was a weekend, most of Bangkok had returned to normalcy.
The tragic exception is the four-storey-high mound of rubble at Chatuchak.
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Zach Hope is South-East Asia correspondent. He is a former reporter at the Brisbane Times.Connect via email.