N. Korean Building Collapse 1

[dik]

North Korean officials have apologised for the collapse of an apartment building in Pyongyang which is feared to have killed scores of people.

The accident in Pyongyang on Tuesday was reported on Sunday morning by the official Korean Central News Agency.

BBC Link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-27459186

Dik

 

[JedClampett]

They're spending all their effort trying to figure out how to blame it on the imperialist American dogs.

 

[JAE]

Not sure why - but the use of the word "accident" to describe a structural collapse seems wrong to me.

 

[bridgebuster]

I wonder how many people will be going to the dogs - literally - over this.

 

[dik]

Jed... let's try to keep the politics out of this... It was likely constructed by locals, corrupt or otherwise...

Dik

 

[dik]

JAE... noticed that... it appeared they were more concerned about who to avoid blaming than the actual reason for collapse... again, might have been that those authorised to talk about it had no technical knowledge...

Dik

 

[msquared48]

The saving face scenario tends to run pretty high up the chain. We are probably looking at far, far more than one reason for the collapse here, structurally, politically, or otherwise.

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

 

[SLTA]

breaks my heart. all those poor people, and folks only worry about not being blamed for it.

 

[dik]

M^2... and we probably have more lawyers, too... It was interesting that it was kept quiet for a few days... if something like that happened in our environs, Eng-tips would know about it in minutes...

Dik

 

[msquared48]

What gets me is the photo of supposed officials with their heads hanging down... and this is supposed to make people feel better?

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

 

[ornerynorsk]

It's a darned shame when anything like this happens, axis-of-evil or not. It was likely not government officials crushed in the failed structure, it was your average mom and pop and kids, just scraping by to try and make a living the best they could. Heartbreaking indeed.

Doubtful that much in the way of failure reports or other analysis is ever going to see the light of day. I'd hate to be anyone even remotely associated with that project, given how dprk tends to deal with such "shortcomings".

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

 

[dik]

They don't know the number of fatalities... but, likely over 100...

 

[JStephen]

From what I read earlier, these were liable to be upper-class people, not your normal peasants, which is one reason it got the attention it did.
If I remember right, one reason that big hotel was abandoned was rampant construction deficiencies.
You would assume that the threat of a painful death would make everyone involved really toe the line on safety. But you also have a mafia-type mentality there, starting at the top, so you can figure everyone involved, from top to bottom, was trying to line their own pockets as well.

 

[Duwe6]

". . .have a mafia-type mentality there. . "

Similar to, or same as China. For at least the last 2000 years of their recorded 3500-year history, business was done, and is being done with bribes. They wouldn't stop just because 3 generations of Kim's have been in charge. If you don't pay the 'fixer' to take care of greasing and regreasing the correct palms, the correct ammounts -- Cumsha -- you will get only the crappy leftovers, delivered late. This is why one USA pipe supplier has a QPL list of 3 mills in China, of the 60 or 80 in operation. All 60-80 have *excellent* prices, just don't deliver to specification w/o a fixer present. And one of the 3 was only reciently reinstated - they had been dropped for delivering substandard materials.

Looks like somebody forgot a couple of palms to grease. And this is why you really can't buy 'spec grade' material from China/N. Korea.

 

[JStephen]

I was reading some more on the collapse. You find English articles reporting what some newspaper in China or Japan said, but it's not clear if those are actually based on any additional information, or just more speculation based on the same information. Anyway, various articles say over 400 or over 500 casualties, that 4 or 5 of the responsible engineers have been executed by firing squad, etc. One of the articles I read mentioned a major problem was scheduling, as when Kim sets a completion date, it does not change no matter what.

 

[JStephen]

Another update of interest:

http://www.nknews.org/2014/06/satellite-imagery-casts-new-doubt-on-pyongyang-building-collapse/

 

[msquared48]

Isn't saving face fun?

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

 

[IRstuff]

What amazes me is that in this day and age, one would think that with the ease by which things like this and the VA debacle are fact-checked, that people would have sufficient brains to realize that cover-ups are so stupid. It's one thing to be shown to be incompetent, but to be shown to be incompetent and idiotic has got to be worse...

TTFN
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[JAE]

So the linked article seems to imply the building collapsed far earlier than North Korea reported as no building like that could be cleaned up in 4 days.

The reason given was that NK was trying to show the world how efficient they were in dealing with disasters compared with South Korea and their sunk ferry.

 

[IRstuff]

NK is probably under constant satellite surveillance, and it would be difficult to hide something like a building collapse with so much imagery available.

TTFN
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