This year's World Demolition Awards has a very international flavour

Regular readers will know that the World Demolition Awards and Demolition Summit 2017 are getting ever closer. This year they are being held in London on November 2nd. And it is going to be a very international affair this time around.

Entrants to the awards come from a very diverse range of countries, with the list including India, New Zealand, Singapore, and Russia. The judging line-up is just as diverse, with 8 experts made up of 4 Europeans, 3 Americans, and an Australian.

November 2nd could be a flagship night for the awards, the summit, and the demolition industry. Make sure you're there to experience it live.

Source: KHL

5 men injured, 1 dead at Satpura thermal power plant demolition

In a stark reminder of how not every country has the same health and safety system in place as the UK, 5 men have been seriously injured and 1 man killed on a demolition site in a district of Madhya Pradesh state in central India.

The 6 men were working as labourers at the Satpura thermal power plant located in Sarani town in Betul district. Demolition is under way there to remove old buildings. However,debris from a tilted conveyor belt fell on the the men, with the man who died, Ramlal Talsa, being just 22 years old.

The blame has been placed on Mumbai-based Sikkim Ferro company who had won the tender for demolishing the buildings. It's unclear what, if anything will happen next. In the UK a thorough investigation, fines, compensation, and prosecutions would be a matter of course.

Source: webindia23

Building Collapses – When will developers learn the lessons?

How many people have to die in building collapses until developers learn the lessons that buildings are designed to take particular loads and NO MORE.

Last week saw a major building collapse incident in Riga, Latvia resulting in the death of 54 people at the latest count, and that will, no doubt, grow as the rubble is removed by the emergency services

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25068291

The cause of the collapse is “expected to be” the construction of a roof garden onto the completed building that the developers thought would be a good idea. Maybe a garden would be nice but how did they expect the building to stand the additional load of several hundred tonnes of soil and gravel? This foolhardy approach has resulted in the deaths of at least 54 people who were just doing their shopping in an environment that should have been safe for them.

If this collapse was a “one off” maybe it would be viewed as an unfortunate accident but when you consider that in Bangladesh a factory producing clothing for Primark collapsed killing over 1000 people because floors were overloaded

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2317012/Primark-factory-collapse-Death-toll-Bangladesh-set-jump-1-400.html

In India a building, again overloaded, collapsed killing over 40 people

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-24314133

And finally the Sampoong Supermarket, discussed in every NDTG Demolition Manager course, that collapsed killing 501 people because the building owners decided to add additional floors, remove internal load bearing columns and then add over 60 tonnes of plant to the new roof. Is it any wonder it collapsed?


As a demolition engineer I like to think that I know how buildings may react when subjected to unusual loadings but I am never sure exactly what that reaction will be, so how can developers decide to increase floor and roof loadings significantly without a thorough structural check, a set of robust calculations and a sign off from a structural engineer?

The worldwide construction industry needs to take stock, rethink how we deal with building modifications and do all that we can to prevent many more buildings being reduced to rubble in seconds by poor design, overloading of the floors and a blatant disregard of the members of the public who may just be going about their daily business and should be able to do so in safety.

Tata Groupe creates the world's cheapest home costing 500 Euros

In the western world our housing is of a high quality with multiple bedroom options, bungalows, detached, semis, flats, the choice is quite broad, and the cost can be anything from £60,000 to a million. What you buy depends on what you can afford.

In developing countries, there is no such choice and a home is what you can build yourself or share with others. In India, the slums even rely on asbestos roofing to keep them dry, even if it is slowly killing the people beneath it.

What such places require is affordable housing that is both clean and will last many years. Tata Group, an Indian multinational conglomerate, may have just come up with the solution by creating a 500 Euro home.

Tata Group has interests in technology, engineering, materials, energy, chemicals, and consumer products. It operates in 80 countries and consists of 114 companies. So you can see how pooling that expertise can bring about the solution to a problem as big as cheap housing.

The project has been put together by 15 people mainly working for Tata Steel's Indian and European operations. It consists of a 20-square-foot prefabricated structure that can be transported anywhere and constructed for the 500 Euro price. A larger 700 Euro house is also going to be made available.

Although there are no images of the cheap housing yet, Tata expects to have it available to buy within 8 months at which point they should start popping up all over the world.

As well as being a cheap, safe form of housing, the materials used for the doors and windows can vary, meaning there's also an opportunity for local recycling to occur in support of these homes.

Source: Tata Group

Asbestos a growing problem for India

In the UK we have responded to the threat caused by asbestos. There are now strict guidelines and rules in place for its handling and removal. In other developing countries the knowledge and governance of such a hazardous material is far behind the west.

In India, asbestos is still used because of its "benefits". If you ever see pictures of slums in India, all those makeshift roofs are probably manufactured from asbestos, meaning the people who are sheltered by them are subject to asbestos dust and water contamination on a daily basis. The fact asbestosis is a problem in the country should come as no surprise.

While the UK has banned the use of asbestos, India still imports it in large quantities (322,200 metric tons in 2009) before it is turned into cheap corrugated roofing. Why is such a dangerous material so popular? Because it is both cheap and fuels a manufacturing industry that employs around 100,000 people.

Slowly the Indian people are waking up to the dangers of asbestos as more families have relatives becoming terminally ill because of it. Plastic is now sought out to sit underneath the corrugated roofing, and new factories being built to manufacture asbestos-based products are being increasingly protested and blocked.

Legislation in India is desperately needed to govern its use, but seems to be forgotten about when asbestos means new jobs and income for the population and government.

To get the full story visit The Star website and read the article "Slow Poison of asbestos chokes Indian workers"

The leaning tower of India

This isn't something you see every day and residents were lucky to escape.

The Firdos building you see in the video above is located in Surat, India and has apparently been standing for many years. Then someone noticed it was starting to lean ever so slightly, and that leaning got progressively worse.

Bystanders started to gather and throw stones at the building to try and get the attention of residents. Thankfully it seems like everyone managed to get out before the inevitable happened.

The building continued to lean to one side until gravity took over and it came crashing to the ground.