EDITORIAL: On March 28, our security and safety were shaken alongside the SAO building

Today is the 28th. Last month, on this same date, Thailand and Myanmar were jolted by a major earthquake of 7.7 magnitude, prompting extensive damage and casualties in the countries.

What is left alongside are the challenges on all fronts. The first is disaster preparedness and response, which was immediately proved to be poorly in place in the very first hours of the earthquake. The second is disaster relief and recovery, which has been so sluggish, especially in Myanmar, where the situation is exacerbated by military strikes launched by the interim government. 

Last but not least is disaster prevention and mitigation, which becomes faltered as being plagued by irregularities. The case which stands as a testament to this fact is the collapse of the 30-storey under-construction building of Thailand’s State Audit Office.

It’s widely accepted that earthquakes are natural disasters that are hard to predict, but somehow their associated risks and damage can be mitigated, if not totally prevented.

In 2004, Thailand learned extensively about the disaster as it was struck by the tsunami triggered by one of the world’s strongest earthquakes in Indonesia. Since, the country has come up with measures to address those risks, including new earthquake-resistant building codes so that high-rise buildings in risk-prone areas can withstand the forces of up to Magnitude 7.

The ministerial regulation B.E. 2550 (2007) under the Building Code Act B.E. 2522 was among the first to have been developed and put in place along with the new seismic building codes and standards. These regulations were revised in 2018 and 2021 to improve earthquake-resistant designs and engineering.

They cannot and should not be corrupted, or otherwise, they will put people at more risk. Buildings in major cities, especially in the capital of Bangkok, have been strictly regulated under these codes. The country’s leading earthquake experts and structural engineers have confirmed after the incident that these codes are proven to be sufficient to deal with major earthquakes — if they are strictly adhered to.

The collapsed SAO building just challenges this statement as it’s the only building in the city that collapsed — with the design and the change of the design being seriously questioned.

During the meeting of the Lower House’s standing committee on budget monitoring in the middle of this month, a representative of the Council of Engineers Thailand (COE), a third party in the government-appointed probe panel into the case, told the meeting that the design of the collpased SAO building was “not in line” with the 2007 Building Codes.

“Irregularities” in the design and construction of the building, the COE’s representative said, were found from the first floor to the middle of the height of the building. 

The construction of its core walls and shear core, supposed to be the strongest part of the building, has become the focus. These structures are found by noted structural engineers examining the building as irregular. 

Professor Dr. Amorn Pimanmas of Kasetsart University’s Civil Engineering Faculty and President of Thai Structural Engineers Association, said in an engineering terms, the SAO building collapsed like a domino, having a starting point before the damage spread all over the building until it completely collapsed with floors layered like pancakes.

Aside from the explosions of some pillars on the ground floor and near the top of the building, it’s the core walls, which were seen collapsing in free fall in the early seconds, prompting him to speculate that they were the starting point of the building collapse.

Former President and Professor Emeritus of the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) (Civil Engineering), Dr. Worsak Kanok-Nukulchai has offered his observations with a more specific focus on the shear core on the ground floor, using the theory of St. Venant Torsion to explain his assumption.

He found that the building was built asymmetrically as its shear core was constructed on the back of the building, not the centre. This created “cyclic torsion” when the building was shaken and prompted the shear walls on the ground floor to break and collapse, so the Ground Fall Failure, the free fall collapse of the building due to its own weight and gravity.

The SAO executives told the House meeting that the design of these walls was changed, with their width reduced to enable interior designs and sufficient walking space as required by the law. 

The police and the Department of Special Investigation (DS) are now finding out who or what caused the building collapse, and the design and the change of the design are all in their focus.

The DSI, in particular, is expanding its investigation to find out whether there was misconduct that would have contributed to this building collapse tragedy, under which 103 workers were listed as the victims, and 65 of them being confirmed dead so far.

From the nominee case, it’s now going after those behind the bid collusion in the project, which is worth Bt 2,100 million. So far, it has found possible use of nominees in China Railway Number 10 (Thailand) (CREC), Italian-Thai Development Plc’s counterpart in a joint venture, ITD-CREC. 

CREC’s Chinese executive, Zhang Chunling, is confirmed by a representative at the Chinese Embassy here as an official of China’s state enterprise, CREC No.10. It is a subsidiary of China’s state-own mega construction enterprise, China Railway Group Limited (CREC), based in Beijing, China.

Under the rubble of this flawed building, facts are being unfolded. Our disaster prevention and mitigation is shaken not only by earthquakes, but also by irregularities in the mega construction industry, which has become complicated with joint investment with foreign entities in a form of a joint venture. The ongoing investigations must not slow down or stop in any way and by any means. All these need to be brought under the spotlight so we can see clearly who or what actually caused the collapse.

The truth of this story is; it’s not only the SAO building that was shaken to the ground, but also our security and safety in times of disaster.