Structural Failures One thing we hear too much about is construction failures. Some of these have been monumental and have happened all over the world including in the United States. One that many of us have heard about concerns a bridge. One would believe a suspension bridge would have its design examined and verified many times over to make sure it was viable. One of the most famous bridge failures in this country took place when the Tacoma Narrows Bridge was opened in 1940. The bridge was located in Tacoma, Washington. Construction had taken about three years. After the bridge was opened it only lasted about four months. It began to vibrate and sway and as this became more violent the roadway began to collapse. When 40 mile an hour wind struck the bridge on November 7, 1940 the bridge collapsed into the river below. Some attribute the failure to using a cheaper construction method than was first proposed. It seems construction failures go back thousands of years and one can see them exemplified in ancient Egypt in the construction of failed pyramids. It took the Egyptians a few tries before they got the pyramid shape correct. Besides pyramids which didn’t have the correct shape, at least one pyramid was found which collapsed during construction. It was a pyramid built for Pharaoh Huni who was the last king of the third Dynasty. Another pyramid called the Bent Pyramid also shows a failure in obtaining the crisp pyramid shape. Construction which had problems from the very beginning was the Bell Tower in Pisa. It began to lean in the twelfth century because the ground was too soft and couldn’t support the weight and the leaning got worse all through the construction which continued until the fourteenth century. By the time 1990 was reached the tilt was 5.5 degrees, and had become dangerous so something had to be done. From 1993 through 2001 work was conducted on the tower and the tilt was reduced to 3.97 degrees. The construction had continued even though it was obvious the ground was too soft and the tower began to lean, this was probably because of the slow rate of lean. It might have been calculated the tower would last hundreds of years even though the lien would increase, but it was still a construction error. A newly built building complex in Shanghai contained apartment buildings. One of these tall buildings which was just built completely collapsed and killed a worker. The collapse was caused by careless practices by the builder. He had caused the ground to become unstable because he dumped excavated soil on a nearby river bank which affected the ground under the building. When a building of this size collapses many times it will cause quite a few deaths, but in this case, it was considered lucky that only one person died. Another bridge which cause devastation was the Québec city bridge and when it was built in 1907, it was the longest bridge in the world. Engineers considered it a wonder but that didn’t last too long. The bridge collapsed and killed 86 workers. An investigation followed and it was found cost-cutting procedures were responsible for the failure. To save money the bridge’s piers were placed further out in the river which meant the main span had to be increased in length another 60 meters. This caused more stress. It is said the plans which had been revised for building the bridge had not been checked properly. In 1986 a six-story building in Singapore which had housed a hotel, bank and nightclub collapsed to the ground in under 60 seconds. In this case investigators looking into the collapse found an obvious error in the plans, this error cost the lives of 33 people and injured 17 more. The engineer who built the building had made an error of the type which was unthinkable when building a structure. When he figured out how much weight the building would have to hold, he neglected to figure in the weight of the building itself. This was just not the kind of mistake you would think a professional would make. The deadliest stadium disaster in the history of the world happened in Rome, Italy in the year 27 A.D. We all know what incredible builders the Romans were and that is obvious by looking at the buildings they created which are still standing 2000 years later, but not all of their coliseums were works of art. Emperor Tiberius decided to build a coliseum, but it would be nothing like the famous one. This one had much cheaper materials and was not planned out well and the proof of this was it collapsed with 50,000 spectators inside. 20,000 people were killed or injured. After that Romans required inspections and certificates prior to occupancy. The Coliseum which we all know so well was built between 70 and 72 A.D. and that one is built right. There have been dams all over the world which have failed. One of the biggest failures was of the Banqiao Reservoir Dam in Henan, China. The dam failure killed about 171,000 people and is considered one of the biggest damn failures in history. One of the reasons for this was not one damn had collapsed in the chain but 62. Typhoon Nina had hit the area in 1975. The failure affected over 10 million people. The flood the failure created was said to be the third largest flood in history. It covered 3,000,000 acres. This failure was due more to insufficient communication than actual failures in the construction. Messages about when to open and close the gates were not accepted on the first day. The next day this was approved but never reached the dam. On the third day it was too late the water had crested putting tremendous pressure on the dam along with the other 61 dams. The Chinese even bombed some of the dams to try and relieve the pressure down the line by diverting the water flow, but it was too late. There is nothing sadder than when children die and it is due to negligence. Such was the case with the Pétionville School which was built in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The school had collapsed killing 93 people, mostly children. Another hundred and fifty were injured. The building collapsed in 2008. It had a connection to a church and when an investigation was conducted it was found the owner of the school who was a minister admitted he built the school himself without consulting any professionals and he had used very little structural steel or cement to hold up the concrete blocks which held the building together.
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