Xinhua News Agency, Suzhou, July 14 -
Title: building collapse tragedy which sounded the alarm?
——Tracing of the "7·12" house collapse accident in Wujiang, Jiangsu
Xinhua News Agency reporters Yang Shaogong, Li Yuze, Li Bo, Cao Yanyu
At about 9 am on July 14, more than 40 hours after the incident, the search and rescue work for the collapse of the auxiliary building of the Four Seasons Kaiyuan Hotel at No. 188 Youche Road, Wujiang, Suzhou, was completed.
A total of 17 people were killed and 5 people were injured in the accident.
The Jiangsu Provincial Government has established an accident investigation team to conduct in-depth investigations on the specific causes of the accident. The public security organs have subpoenaed the hotel’s legal representative, actual operator, project leader, engineering designer, and on-site construction leader, etc., and conducted investigations on relevant personnel. Take criminal coercive measures.
The State Council Safety Committee listed the investigation and handling of the accident to supervise the handling.
How can a hotel accessory building decorated for catering take the lives of many people?
How is the rescue going?
Can such tragedies be avoided?
Xinhua News Agency reporters conducted a follow-up investigation.
Go straight to the scene: there is a glimmer of hope not to give up search and rescue
At about 10 pm on the day of the accident, the reporter saw at the scene of the accident that a cordon was pulled dozens of meters away from the collapsed hotel, with ambulances and police cars coming in and out from time to time.
Local residents told reporters that at around 3:30 in the afternoon, they heard a loud noise in the direction of the hotel, and someone ran out to say that the building had collapsed.
Not long after, police, fire and ambulance vehicles drove up, and some people were pulled away by the ambulance.
Before dark, the crane came and rescue vehicles lined up all the way.
Cadres came to evacuate the residents, and the elderly in the nursing home opposite the hotel were also transferred.
Information screening of missing persons, reassurance of residents, and rescue work were carried out at the same time.
Resident Ms. Zhu said that she received a call from the community around the evening, asking her about her personal situation and telling her to avoid danger.
According to the hotel check-in information, relevant departments first screened out 18 trapped persons, and then discovered 5 unregistered persons.
At about 11 pm, the reporter entered the rescue scene.
The air was filled with a choking diesel smell, the generator roared loudly, and emergency lights illuminated the scene as bright as day.
The three cranes used their booms against part of the roof that had not collapsed, and rescuers under the booms were searching and rescuing nervously.
According to the reporter's measurement, it was found that the ambient temperature was still as high as 30 degrees Celsius even though it was night.
Climbing ladders, large cranes, metal cutting machines, life detectors, snake-eye detectors, rescue dogs... The reporter learned that the Jiangsu Fire Brigade mobilized 650 people and 120 vehicles, and used a variety of rescue equipment and technical means to rescue all night. .
All relevant departments have also invested in rescue and aftermath work.
The wounded were rushed to the hospital for treatment.
The medical staff of the Department of Emergency and Critical Care Medicine of the Ninth People's Hospital of Suzhou City, with the support of provincial and municipal experts, began to treat the injured.
Huang Yingzi, deputy dean of the Zhongda Hospital affiliated to Southeast University and leader of the provincial medical expert group, told reporters that the five wounded in the accident are currently in stable condition.
24 hours after the incident, 20 people were rescued at the scene of the accident, but 3 people were still missing.
The on-site headquarters demanded that "there is no gleam of hope and never give up, and strive for the best result."
After another night of intense search and rescue, at 9 a.m. on the 14th, the staff confirmed that the last trapped person had been found, and the on-site search and rescue work came to an end.
Cause of the accident: preliminary judgment is that the load-bearing wall was demolished and modified
17 people were killed and 5 were injured. What caused this tragedy?
The reporter learned from the relevant local departments that, based on preliminary technical analysis and judgment, the preliminary cause of the accident may be that the existing property owner of the collapsed house arranged for workers to enter the site to carry out renovations without authorization.
The internal load-bearing wall of the hotel's auxiliary building was suspected to be demolished and altered, causing this part of the house to collapse.
The reporter's investigation found that the Four Seasons Kaiyuan Hotel where the collapse occurred was a Shanhu Hotel funded by farmers in Wujiang. After 2006, it was renamed Feiniu Hotel and Junyuan Hotel. In early 2020, it was changed to Four Seasons Kaiyuan Hotel.
Every time the name was changed, it was re-decorated, but no one asked whether the renovation process complied with the building safety regulations.
Wei Daping, deputy general manager of Nanjing Yangtze River Metropolis Architectural Design Co., Ltd. Several experts in the field of architectural design told reporters that this kind of private and public buildings have undergone multiple property rights changes and decorations. If you do not pay attention to the safety of the house structure, it is only to meet the reality. The need for blind decoration can easily cause safety risks.
In addition, the reporter also learned that the accident may also be related to the service life of the building and the structure of the building.
A staff member of the local government told reporters that the auxiliary building of the collapsed hotel was built around 1984.
The reporter saw that there were brick masonry and broken cement slabs everywhere at the collapse site, as well as a small amount of steel frame structure.
It can be seen from the joints and decoration traces of the never-collapsed wall that this is a three-story brick-concrete building with a steel frame roof.
"According to the current intensity of use, many houses built in the 1980s are now at the end of their useful life." Wei Daping believes that brick masonry and concrete floor slabs are a typical architectural style in the 1980s, and such building quality is based on the current It is difficult to meet the usual 50-year service life standard.
Rethinking and warning: the safety management ability of basic-level housing needs to be improved
In recent years, many residential collapse accidents have occurred in Shanxi, Henan, Fujian and other places, sounding the alarm for the safety management of grassroots houses.
Residents living near the hotel in question told reporters that many houses along the street are similar in age to the collapsed auxiliary buildings, and they do not know whether there is a safety hazard.
Several experts from Wei Daping reminded that some of the brick-concrete structure floor houses built in the early stages of urbanization in my country may no longer meet the current needs of use. The relevant departments should deal with the safety of the brick-concrete structure buildings that were not formally designed in the 1980s and 1990s. Hidden hazard investigations, and timely rectification of hidden hazard buildings.
The reporter learned through interviews that at present, some grassroots, especially county and city-level housing safety management and appraisal personnel have limited professionalism, and the allocation of township housing safety management personnel is insufficient. This has a significant impact on improving the safety management level of grassroots housing at districts and counties and below.
Experts suggest that the training of basic-level housing management personnel should be strengthened as soon as possible, and a village, town, county, prefecture, and provincial housing safety management and consulting network platform should be established to realize the entire system and entire process of housing supervision to ensure the safe use of housing for the masses.
Some experts also suggested that more efforts should be made to crack down on illegal behaviors in house structure demolition and modification, and to further tighten supervision responsibilities.